


Alchemy

by athena_crikey



Category: Bleach
Genre: AU, Ichigo finds nobility boring, Kisuke finds poverty unappealing, M/M, Mutual Attraction, Secrets, h/c, soul society AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 09:19:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16678870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Shiba Ichigo leads a boring, blameless life as head administrator for the Shiba Clan. Until one day, a mysterious repair shop moves in next door.





	1. Repair Shop

It’s been nearly a month since Ichigo left the compound. With its pristine halls and extensive training rooms, its lush gardens and busy kitchens, the compound contains everything he needs. His office is there, books and scrolls and invoices all neatly tucked away in drawers and on shelves, his desk a monument to organization. His room is there as well, spacious and airy, with windows overlooking a quiet pool in a verdant garden. And of course there’s his family: his sisters, and his father when he has time to visit.

It’s all picture-perfect, the rich manor-house and its pampered inhabitants. They want for nothing, have the best of everything and bow only to the main Shiba house. 

And yet, the truth of it is: he’s bored. Bored with his daily routine of bean-counting, bored with this pristine home and its servants and vassals, bored with the fact that _nothing_ ever _happens_. 

So, although he has no destination in mind, he leaves the compound without fanfare or retainers, just walks out a side door and into the street beyond. He carries no weapon and no money – no one would dare waylay him, and anything he wants will be gladly put on the family’s account. 

This neighbourhood is mostly taken up with the compounds of other branch houses, but here and there small shops have sprung up to serve immediate needs. There is a mochi vendor and a fabric shop, a sandal merchant and a toy maker. His mother bought them toys there long ago – it seems almost like another lifetime. 

The only store he doesn’t recognize is placed directly opposite him. Its façade looks new, its sign large and written in a cheerful rather than elegant style – Repair Shop. A notice in the window below proudly proclaims: _We Repair Anything! 1-Day Turnaround._

It hadn’t been there when he went out for the local summer festival last month. It’s a tall, narrow building, wedged in between the edge of the Kurama compound and a fruit vendor. Its walls are wood; its roof is slanted and weighted down with rocks – a cheap build for the 1st District. 

What Ichigo really notices about it, though, is the line. Retainers are standing outside single-file while a slow stream trickles out the door. Some are empty handed, but many are not. The items they carry are eclectic: a splintered rickshaw wheel, a basket of broken crockery, a cracked lacquer box, a stone lion with a missing paw. There’s no pattern to their goods – some would take fine, detailed craftsmanship to repair, while others require an ironmonger or a sculptor. Ichigo doesn’t see how one tiny shop could possibly employ the artisans and workmen necessary; perhaps they contract out. But to do so overnight?

Ichigo doesn’t see how it’s possible.

It just so happens that he broke his reading glasses last week. He intended to have them replaced, but with the quarterly financial reports due he hasn’t gotten around to it, has instead been giving himself headaches peering at rows of figures. He feels their sleek frame in the sleeve of his gi; operating more on curiosity than anything else, he joins the end of the line. 

It’s not long before he’s recognized, and the line parts like water before the prow of a boat, family retainers from the lesser noble clans bowing out of his way. He takes his place at the head of the line, conscious of the whispers behind his back. He’s the son of the branch head – it’s not his place to be visiting shops on errands. 

He’s sick to death of hierarchy, of the futures imposed on them all by the fact of their births. He has been for a long time, his discontentment slowly welling up inside him. Like a frog in gradually simmering water, he’s been bound by it all so long that he hasn’t noticed the fact that he’s boiling to death. His anger threatens to explode out of him now, in this dismal line on the street in front of a bizarre shop.

Just as his glasses give a warning creak in his fist, the door in front of him opens and a wizened lady in a dowdy kimono hurries out clutching a bundle wrapped in silk. She squeaks at the sight of him and hurries out of his way. 

Ichigo strides wrathfully into the repair shop, mind saturated by frustration. He’s no longer in the mood for an interesting diversion: he’s in the mood for a fight.

The room he steps into is tiny, and is made even smaller by the long counter bisecting it. The space in front of the counter is barely large enough for him to turn around in, explaining the line outside. The space behind is lined with shelves that carry an assortment of repaired items: a ceramic vase, a folded kimono, an elaborate sword ( _not_ , Ichigo notes, a Zanpaku-to), and so on. All of them look in pristine condition, without sign of wear or tear. 

There’s also a dark doorway in the corner leading back into what is presumably the workshop; it’s covered by a blue noren with the stylized character _Ura_ imprinted in white on its surface. A moment after Ichigo enters, it’s parted by a tall man in a striped green hat and green jinbei. His eyes are shadowed by his hat; there’s sharpness to his cheekbones and a pallor to his skin that speaks of poverty, although his hands are clean and without the roughness associated with manual work. He’s at least a few years older than Ichigo, although again the hat makes it hard to tell. He’s smiling widely.

“Welcome!” he exclaims, and beneath the shadow of his hat Ichigo sees that his eyes are steel-grey and surprisingly bright. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

 _Laying it on thick_ , thinks Ichigo, irritably. He pulls his glasses from his pocket. They’re long and thin with thick black frames. Yuzu says they make him look sophisticated; Karin says they make him look like an accountant. The lens in the left-hand side is cracked, like ice in a puddle.

“Can you repair these?” he asks gruffly, putting them on the counter. 

“Of course!” The man is effulgent, answering without really looking at the glasses. Ichigo narrows his eyes. 

“You have lens-making equipment?”

“We repair anything.” It’s not really an answer.

“And you can do it in 24 hours?”

“They will be ready first thing tomorrow morning,” promises the shop keeper. He produces an invoice book and fills out in quick, neat writing: _Pair of Glasses_. He looks up. “Your name, please?”

“Shiba Ichigo,” he says. The man makes absolutely no sign of recognizing the name as he jots it down.

Ichigo feels, for the first time, a tiny prickle of interest in this bizarre merchant and his strange shop. It rises through his frustration, like a green shoot growing through a pitted seed. He doesn’t consider himself vain, but it’s a fact that everyone in the 1st district knows his name – knows him by sight, even. 

The latter, he partially attributes to the orange hair.

He wonders where this man came from, that the presence of the most important man in the district in his shop means nothing to him.

Note complete, the shop keeper looks up. “You can pick them up tomorrow morning. I open at 9. It will be 3 mon.”

Ichigo almost tells him to put it on the house account. But paying for something would be a novelty; a further extension of this whole charade of normalcy. “I’ll pay on pick-up,” he says.

“Of course. See you then.”

Ichigo’s used to being bowed out of shops; this man just gives him a cheery wave. 

He’s looking forward to tomorrow with an almost perverse sense of anticipation.

  
***

Unless they have an account with Gin Tonbo or a similar store, Ichigo doesn’t see how they can possibly repair his lens in a day – especially without his prescription. Although not inherently detail-oriented, it’s a skill he’s learned since taking over the clan’s books; a keen eye is expected when balancing accounts. If the repair job is anything less than perfect, he’ll notice it.

He rises at his usual time and goes through his hakuda forms; it’s the only workout he gets in a day mostly spent at his desk. Zangetsu sits on his ceremonial stand at the back of the room as he twists and strikes through the motions, the blade silent and dusty. 

At 8:50 he stops by the treasury and picks up a small bag of bronze coins. Maybe he’ll buy some mochi while he’s out. Maybe even some spun sugar for his sisters. Who knows?

He wants to taste freedom for once, although he’s aware that this is just the tiniest morsel of it. 

There’s already a line forming outside the repair shop when he steps outside the compound gate. As before, it parts upon seeing him approaching. Consequently, he’s at its head when the shop keeper opens the door on the dot of nine. 

“Shiba-san,” he says, grinning easily. “Welcome.”

Equals address him as Shiba-san; to the other residents of the district – to mere _merchants_ – he is Shiba-sama. But, despite the muttering in the line behind him, he feels no cause to censure the shop keeper. Not today, when he’s trying temporarily to break away from the ties that bind him.

He steps into the shop and the shop keeper hurries around the counter to pick his glasses up off the shelf behind him. He’s provided a deep blue cotton cover for them. “Wouldn’t want them to get damaged again,” he says, sliding them onto the counter.

 _Or_ , thinks Ichigo, _he wants to disguise the poor job he’s done._

But when he slides the glasses out of the cloth, to his surprise he sees that the left lens is now whole and clear, fitted perfectly into the frame. He unfolds the arms and puts on the glasses, glancing down at the counter; he can see every pit, every mark, every swirl of the grain. The strength is precisely the same, the lens unblemished. 

He takes them off and looks up at the shop keeper. “How did you do this?” he asks, seriously. 

The shop keeper produces a fan and flaps it coyly. “I’m afraid, Shiba-san, that’s a trade secret.” 

Ichigo points at the variety of products standing on the shelf behind him. There are many new items since yesterday; he notices among them a set of brass scales, a metronome, a jointed puppet. Complex, sophisticated work. “And you repaired all those, as well? In 24 hours?”

“We aim to please.”

He crosses his arms. “It’s not possible.”

“Those are your glasses, aren’t they? You look like a man of taste and judgement – you would know if they weren’t.”

Ichigo ignores the compliment. “You can really repair anything?”

The shop keeper flaps his fan. “My, that sounds like a challenge. But as long as it fits in my back room, yes. I can repair it.”

Ichigo considers him. He looks foolish in his casual clothes and bucket hat, and who but a fool would address Ichigo as Shiba-san? But Ichigo has the sense there’s much more to this man than presents itself on the surface. “What’s your name?”

“Urahara. Urahara Kisuke,” he answers.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

Urahara shifts his weight to one side, smiling crookedly now. “Where I’m from, Shiba-san, no one tries to explain away miracles.”

Ichigo raises his eyebrows. “Is that what you perform? Miracles?”

His eyes are razor-sharp under the hat’s brim; his smile suddenly feels cutting rather than bumbling. “Until you find out how it’s done, what else could it be?”

“I don’t like mysteries.”

“Perhaps that’s simply because you’ve never come across one in real life. And here I am. Right across from your compound.” 

“So you _do_ know who I am.”

“Of course. Shiba Ichigo-san, only son of the Shiba branch house. And the top administrator for the Shiba clan. I am honoured.” His smile is wry, now. He produces from a drawer the invoice drawn up the day before. “Will you pay now? Or perhaps you would prefer credit.”

Ichigo fishes the coins out of the coin purse he brought and puts them down on the table. “I’ll be back,” he says.

“I sincerely hope so,” replies Urahara politely, taking the money. “I value your business. _And_ your curiosity.”

Ichigo takes his glasses and leaves, passing a now-long line of waiting retainers and heading across the street back to the compound. His plans for the day are forgotten, his yearning for freedom stifled by his inquisitiveness. 

He wants to know more about Urahara Kisuke and his Repair Shop. Wants to know how, exactly, the man works his so-called miracles. And who he is that he is utterly unimpressed by the presence of Shiba Ichigo.


	2. Investigations

Ichigo has never been much good at gossip. Growing up as a first-born son of the nobility, he was expected to be upright, disciplined, and distant. Even with a father as garrulous as Shiba Isshin, the expectations had stuck, and as a result his circle of friends is minute. He remains cordial with but apart from the family retainers and vassals, acquainted with all of them but close with none. 

Apart from Yuzu and Karin, there’s no one in the compound he can have a casual conversation with.

Instead of focusing on what he can’t do, he focuses on what he can. He sends a jigokuchou to the District Records Office, and in short order a messenger is dispatched with a copy of Urahara Kisuke’s business license. It gives his name, address (the shop across from the Shiba compound), and business: misc. goods repair. The Place of Origin category is blank.

From this, all Ichigo learns is that Urahara presumably sleeps on site, and that the District Records Officer is negligent in reviewing business licenses. There’s not much point in checking the census records – although they’re accurate in the higher districts, after the 30s the data begin to show holes, and by the time they get to the 60s they’re more net than substance. There’s no guarantee that the effort of combing through the lists would be rewarded. Urahara, he somehow doubts, comes from one of the upper 30s. 

There is, though, one other place he can turn.

  
***

As the son of a captain and a former Academy student, Ichigo has access to Seireitei. He puts on a dark kimono and grey hakama for the trip, the Shiba kamon printed boldly over his chest and spine; he has the family image to uphold. His palanquin is bowed through the gate and slowly makes its way through the white winding streets of Seireitei.

The trip would have been quicker by shunpo, of course, but he can’t show up as a respected visitor to the Shihouin family compound alone and on foot. Not that Yoruichi would mind. 

It is, of course, to see the head of the Onmitsukido that he’s crossing town to see. Who else could investigate someone without leaving any trace?

He’s let off inside the main gate, met first by a retainer and shortly thereafter by the family chatelaine. “To what do we owe the honour of this visit, Shiba-sama?” he enquires, head bowed, the very image of politeness. 

“I wanted to see Shihouin Yoruichi,” replies Ichigo. 

“Shihouin-sama is training right now – I will enquire if she can be disturbed. Please come with me.” He beckons a servant over and takes Ichigo into the house. The servant, barefoot and in an unassuming brown kimono, follows along behind them. She splits off once they enter the house, presumably to go find Yoruichi. 

He’s taken not to the official audience chamber, but to a smaller, more intimate room. Its decorations are minimalist, but shockingly expensive – he recognizes the calligraphy on a wall scroll as the work of one of Soul Society’s most famous calligraphers. What furniture there is is lacquer: the seat backs and a low table beautifully inlaid with mother of pearl. 

“If Shihouin-sama is not available, I will return,” promises the chatelaine, and bows himself out of the room, shutting the shoji silently behind him. 

Ichigo sits back to wait. After a moment’s pause, he pulls his reading glasses out – still in their new, blue cotton cover – and places them on the table in front of him.

In fact, Yoruichi herself comes along soon, a towel slung over her neck. She half-kicks the door open, bursting in exuberantly. She’s wearing nothing but a backless, sleeveless top and a pair of leggings. “Ichi-bo!” she exclaims, smiling her sharp-toothed smile. “You’ve come a-roving! It’s not something boring, is it? If it’s about patrol rosters or the price of widgets, don’t tell me – let’s have fun instead!”

“It’s nothing official,” he says, smiling, as she throws herself down on the opposite side of the table, lounging on the floor. She looks nothing like the head of one of the five noble houses, nothing like the princess she is. 

“Please tell me you’ve finally decided to spite the clan and join the Onmituskido. We don’t require names – or faces.” She rolls over onto her stomach and stares up at him, chin perched on her hands.

“But you do require subtlety. I’m about as subtle as a punch in the face.” He keeps his tone light, but his eyes are steady and hard. She drops it. 

“What, then? You want to train your shunpo with the Flash Goddess? You want to see if you can out-drink me?” She winks bawdily. 

“There’s someone I’d like you to look into,” he says. 

“Trouble?” she asks, perking up.

“No. It’s… curiosity. There’s a new store across the street from me. A Repair Shop.” He pushes the glasses across the table to her. She sits up and snatches them, pulling them from their cover. “The lens in them was broken. He replaced it in less than 24 hours.”

Yoruichi looks up, face sceptical. “You want me to look into a glasses merchant? Because his service was too good?”

“He doesn’t just fix glasses. He fixes anything – toys, tools, works of art. In a day or less. All of them. Perfectly,” he says, thinking back to the shelves of possessions in pristine condition. 

Yoruichi’s examining the glasses now, folding and unfolding the arms and peering through the lenses. “That is strange,” she admits. She perches the glasses on her nose and peers over them at Ichigo, waggling her eyebrows. 

“His name is Urahara Kisuke. Wherever he’s from, it’s not the first district.”

Yoruichi removes the glasses, passing them back across the table to Ichigo. “It may take a few days,” she says.

“It’s not urgent. Like I said, it’s just curiosity.”

“Nothing more?” asks Yoruichi, smiling predatorily.

He thinks back to Urahara, cheerfully smashing through all notions of class and deportment. To pale skin and grey eyes and a coyly crooked grin. “What else could it be?” he asks. 

Before Yoruichi can answer, he changes the topic.

  
***

There’s no reason, Ichigo considers, to avoid doing his own research while he waits for Yoruichi’s spies to return with information on Urahara Kisuke. So, while papers pile up on his desk, he crosses through the corridors of his home to the long hall used for receptions. In a tokonoma at the end of the hall reside three scrolls representing a wild boar chase. Although ancient, he considers them the height of bad taste – they are nothing but a gaudy display of wealth. So, casually, when the room is empty, he strolls in and picks one off the wall. And, taking the delicate rice paper between his hands, rips a tear into it the length of his thumb. This momentary act of vandalism renders the scroll worthless.

He rolls it up, tucks it in his sleeve, and crosses the compound back to the side gate. He lets himself out again, and glances across the street at the Repair Shop. This afternoon, there’s no line. 

The shop is empty when he enters, door rattling under his hand. He hears a clatter from the back of the shop, and then the noren is parted by Urahara. He’s wearing geta, Ichigo realises. He’s also walking with a very slight limp – either a new injury, or one he didn’t notice previously in his brief encounters with the shop keeper. 

“Shiba-san!” exclaims Urahara. “How nice to see you again.” He comes up to the counter, the wooden board rising to his hip, and places his hands on it. They’re nice hands, Ichigo sees, long-fingered and smooth like river rocks. “What can I do for you?”

Ichigo produces the scroll from his sleeve. “This needs fixing,” he says simply, putting it on the counter. He unrolls it, and sees no sign of recognition from Urahara at the prestigious name stamped in the corner. He points out the tear.

“Of course.” The shop keeper reaches out and rolls the scroll back up dextrously. “It will be done tomorrow. The price will be ten mon.” It’s such a small percentage of the scroll’s worth that Ichigo can’t even calculate it. 

Behind them the door rattles, and Ichigo turns to face the man who steps in, crowding him into the corner. It’s one of his own retainers – Yoshizuki. A middle-aged man whose family has served Ichigo’s for generations. He’s holding a parcel wrapped in paper; probably a garment.

“Shiba-san will be done in a moment,” announces Urahara pleasantly. 

“Shiba- _sama_ , you wretch!” corrects Yoshizuki, scandalized. 

Urahara blinks, and glances at Ichigo. “Shiba-sama,” he says, indulgently. 

For some reason, Ichigo doesn’t like the sound of it. Not from this bizarre man in his peculiar shop that feels so far out of Ichigo’s frame of reference that it might almost be another world. A world where he’s not defined solely by his status. He feels a sudden flash of anger at his retainer for reminding him of the commitments he’s been trying to escape. 

“Thank you, Yoshizuki,” he says, sharply. The man colours, bows, and hurries backwards out of the shop. 

“You don’t have to be so formal,” he tells Urahara, after his retainer has disappeared. He’s opening himself up to be taken advantage of, but he feels only a tiny prickle of caution.

“Perhaps not in private,” agrees Urahara. Ichigo smiles at his perceptiveness. “Easier for us both that way,” he adds lightly. 

“Absolutely.” He turns towards the door, speaking over his shoulder: “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it, Shiba-san,” says Urahara.

  
***

The next morning he spends a couple of hours working through the backlog of paper that has piled up while he’s been playing into his escapist fantasy. Then, curiosity beginning to overwhelm him, he steps out to visit the Repair Shop.

As with yesterday the line has died down, and he enters the shop without having to wait. Urahara is behind the counter with his back to the door, prodding at a pair of women’s zori on the top shelf with a curve-handled cane. He swings around as Ichigo comes in, and Ichigo thinks his smile brightens at the sight of him. 

“Shiba-san!” He lowers the cane to lean on it jauntily. “How nice to see you. I’m pleased you were able to release yourself from your duties.”

“It’s been a slow week,” lies Ichigo. And then, leaning his elbow on the counter, “Won’t you tell me more about yourself? About this shop?” He looks around at the tiny space filled with newly-repaired items. Apart from the shelf behind Urahara, it is undecorated. No lists of prices or calendars or hangings, or any of the other clutter businesses tend to post on their walls. “How did you come to be here?”

Urahara picks up a long, narrow box from the shelf and turns, smiling. “Trying to unravel the mystery?” he asks, setting the box down on the counter. “I go where there’s work – and reward. There may be enlightenment in foregoing worldly goods, but there’s nothing noble in poverty,” he smiles self-deprecatingly. “My work brought me here – for the time being, at least. Tensei is lovely – if a bit dull,” he says.

“You must have come to Soul Society as an adult,” assumes Ichigo. 

“What makes you say that?”

“Those born in the lower 50s aren’t literate. Those born in the lower 70s rarely survive childhood,” he replies, matter-of-factly. 

“I can see you have all the makings of a detective, Shiba-san.” Urahara slides the lid of the box open and produces his scroll. He rolls it out on the counter, revealing the bold, bloody portrait of the fleeing boar impaled by arrows. There’s no trace of damage. Ichigo fingers the rice paper where he made the tear; it’s absolutely seamless. 

“I’m damned if I can tell how you did this,” he says. 

“Then I’ve earned my pay.”

Ichigo pulls out his coin purse and produces the bronze coins, putting them down on the counter. “No one’s ever deceived me before,” he says.

Urahara’s mouth crooks upwards. “Then consider this new experience a gift.”

Ichigo takes up the scroll in its box, and steps backwards out of the shop.

  
***

He receives a written report from Yoruichi the next day, couriered to him by a shinobi dressed all in black who appears silently outside his door. He leaves as soon as Ichigo has taken the letter.

Ichigo retreats to his desk and opens the missive, revealing Yoruichi’s bold strokes.

_Ichi-bo,_

_I sent several men to look into your little mystery. I was able to uncover the following:_

  * _Urahara Kisuke was first heard of in District E-42 (Museitaki), but he didn’t come from there. It’s certain that his point of origin was considerably less salubrious – possibly even in the lower 70s._
  * _He has been in operation for roughly five years, working his way steadily into more prestigious districts._
  * _His work is universally praised, but no one knows what tools he uses._
  * _Physically, he is known for wearing a hat and geta in all weather, and walking with a slight limp for which he sometimes uses a cane. The cane is almost certainly a shikomizue, but no one has ever seen him employ it._
  * _He has no trace of reiatsu, and did not react to the Shinigami awareness tests my operatives employed._
  * _He has no record of ever having entered Seireitei._
  * _He works alone._



_What you make of these pieces of information is up to you!_

_Good luck with your project,_

_Yoruichi_  
  
He folds the letter up and slowly leans backwards in his chair, staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t feel much more informed, despite the flurry of activity. He’s behind on his work and out ten mon with nothing to show for it.

But he’s not ready to give up yet. Not even close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Museitaki_ (E-42) – Silent Waterfall  
>  _Tensei_ (E-1) – Heavenly Voice


	3. Festival

Summer is a time of festivals and fireflies, and even now that the season’s drawing to a close there’s still one last festival to come, the biggest of them all: the lantern matsuri. Lanterns are hung throughout the upper 30 Eastern districts, but most of all in the upper 10. Vendor stalls are erected along the main roads, decorated with colourful hangings and selling knick-knacks and toys and even food for the spiritually-inclined; and fireworks fill the night sky. For those in Tensei, the evening culminates with a fire dance in the local park. Hundreds come together to dance around the bonfire to the sounds of taiko drums. 

Ichigo’s fondest memories of the lantern matsuri are those years he attended with his mother – his whole family dancing around the bonfire while their flickering shadows were painted on the ground. These days, he doesn’t attend. His father comes home from Seireitei to take Karin and Yuzu, so there’s no cause for him to participate. 

This year, he plans to do much the same as always: hole up in his quarters with a bottle of shochu and a book and pay the festivities outside no mind. But even as he’s considering hailing a servant to fetch the shochu, it occurs to him that this might be a perfect time to further his investigations into Urahara Kisuke. People relax their inhibitions during festivals, drinking and dancing until early in the morning. It might be a perfect opportunity to learn more about the shop keeper. 

So instead of sending for a drink, he goes to his closet and pulls out a summer yukata, one with a checked pattern of navy and sky-blue squares. He pulls it on, runs a brush through his unruly hair, and leaves his quarters dark and empty. 

Yuzu, Karin and his father have already left; most of the compound is empty as well, many of the servants and retainers having been given the night off. Ichigo ghosts unnoticed through the long hallways until he comes to the entrance. He picks up a pair of geta – his thoughts jumping momentarily to Yoruichi’s report on Urahara’s footwear of choice – and steps out into the front courtyard.

Like the rest of the compound, it’s impeccably designed. An open space for the loading and unloading of palanquins and the arrival of guests on foot is bordered by a garden. Nearest to the courtyard is an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of stones, raked gravel and verdant moss. In the middle space behind, green-leaved maple trees dot the landscape, interspaced with stone lanterns. At the back bordering the compound wall bamboo rises skyward, some of the stalks as wide as the circle of Ichigo’s hands. 

Ichigo leaves through the main gate, waving away offers of accompaniment from the gate-keepers. He walks slowly around the compound on the outside, admiring the lanterns that have been hung from the walls’ roof tiles, lighting the long white walls in buttery hues. He comes to the corner, turns, and walks down towards the side gate and the repair shop opposite. 

The shop is dark, its frontage abandoned. A sign in the window reads: _Closed for the festival!_

Ichigo smiles. It’s only a matter of time before he finds the shop keeper.

  
***

As it turns out, though, his memories of the festival – as seen through a child’s eyes – are much smaller and more intimate than the reality. The streets are thronging with men, women and children in yukata, many carrying newly-purchased pinwheels, kendama or daruma. The night is filled with the sound of geta clattering on stone, and of drums beating in the distance. The entire scene is lit with the soft glow of lanterns, thousands and thousands of them strung along walls and on criss-crossed wires overhead.

For a while Ichigo lets the drift of the crowd direct him. He passes by stalls with toys and games for children and adults, of spun sugar and candied fruits and takoyaki, of charms and decorations. The mood is celebratory, people laughing and singing as they move through the crowded streets. 

Finding one man on a night like tonight, he’s coming to realise, was wishful thinking. But it’s hard to be put out when the prevailing mood is so exuberant; he decides to enjoy himself. He stops by a stall selling drinks and downs a beer to take the edge off the night, then continues wending his way through the streets and stands. Somewhere along the way he picks up a plate of takoyaki and a dango stick. He chews as he walks, the crowd parting in front of him when he’s recognized. 

Like the rest of the gathering, he is slowly being drawn towards the park. By now the sun has set and the lanterns are the uncontested light source, varying in hues from golden yellow to warm crimson. He follows their light, and the crowd, to the park.

Benches have been set up around the periphery of the open area. Inside the square space that they create is the enormous bonfire, its flames licking hungrily at the sky. A platform has been set up for the drummers, wearing blue and white happi and beating feverishly at the deer hide drums. 

The space is filled with people dancing – singles, couples, families; all revolve slowly around the flames in time with the drumming. Ichigo sees his father and sisters, and sidles behind a passing Shinigami to remain anonymous. 

He takes a seat on a bench to finish his takoyaki, only to notice a familiar form a few benches down. Ironically, for once Urahara Kisuke is dressed not in his jinbei, which would finally have been appropriate here, but in a grey yukata. It’s vertically stripped in tones from charcoal to ash grey, a monochrome that matches his eyes. His hat and geta are present as always; his cane rests on his lap. 

Ichigo casually finishes his takoyaki, then stands and crosses the space between them. Urahara looks up as the fire throws his shadow over the shop keeper; he smiles. “How good to see you, Shiba-sama!” he exclaims, making Ichigo abruptly aware of the tightly packed gathering immediately around them. 

His face is somewhat drawn, skin unusually pale, even for him. Ichigo wonders how strenuous his work must be, to leave him looking so run down. He takes a seat next to him. “I always enjoy the festival,” he lies.

Urahara gives him an interested look. “That’s not what others here say. Your appearance has made something of a splash after such a long absence.”

“You’ve been asking after me,” says Ichigo, refusing to be abashed at being caught out in his lie. 

“You’re a popular topic of conversation. The young noble who is upright to a fault, and puts his work before himself.”

“I’m not so upright,” replies Ichigo, and this time he does colour slightly. He hopes the firelight hides it, but has the sense that little escapes Urahara’s sharp eyes. “And I’m here, not working. So it can’t all be true.”

“Perhaps you’ve been doing too diligent a job for too long,” supposes Urahara, tapping his fingers gently on his cane. “Perhaps that’s why you’re so interested in unravelling my little mystery.”

“Perhaps I just don’t like false miracles on my doorstep,” replies Ichigo, but with amusement in his voice. 

“As I said before, Shiba-sama: Are they false if no one knows how they’re done?”

Ichigo meets his eyes, his own gaze steady. “I will find out, you know.”

Urahara smiles. “Could I expect anything else from such an exalted – and diligent – person?” he asks, voice teasing. 

Ichigo abruptly wishes they were somewhere private – somewhere unconstrained by what those passing by might hear. Somewhere where Urahara might drop his lordly form of address, although Ichigo doubts anything would make him more straightforward. 

He’s coming to realise that it’s not just Urahara’s strange business he wants to know more about: it’s Urahara himself. He finds something in the shop keeper’s enthusiastic yet secretive manner appealing. He certainly likes the fact that Urahara has no fear of him – or, he thinks, particular respect. And underlying that, he’s not so un-self aware as to be ignorant of the fact that he’s attracted to Urahara. To his golden hair and sharp eyes, his pale skin and beautiful hands. And of course to that humorously crooked mouth. 

It’s been a long time since he was attracted to someone – since his Academy days. But Inoue Orihime had had dreams of helping others, and had ended up in the Fourth, living and working in Seireitei. While he withdrew from the Academy and returned home to become a paper pusher. 

Suddenly irritated with himself for his descent into melancholy, he stands. “Come on,” he says, holding his hand out to Urahara who looks up at him in surprise. “Everyone’s dancing. We should too.”

“You forget, Shiba-sama, that I’m lame.”

“I’ve seen you walk just fine without the cane. It’s not so strenuous a dance.”

“I don’t know the movements.”

“You’ve been watching – it’s not complicated. I haven’t done it since I was a kid, you know.”

Urahara smiles. “Well. If you’re willing to risk public embarrassment along with me…” He stands, hanging his cane on the crook of his elbow, and joins Ichigo closer to the bonfire. 

He takes up his place directly behind Urahara, subtly watching him as they make their way around the bonfire in a wide circle, moving in time to the drum beat. Despite claiming to have no experience, Urahara’s movements are smooth and well-timed save occasional shuffles from his lame leg; Ichigo finds himself watching them instead of concentrating on his own progress. As Urahara turns, he briefly catches Ichigo’s eye; there’s something hot and hungry in his gaze that makes Ichigo all the more aware of how thin the yukata he wears is. Of how well it shows off his flat stomach and curved ass. 

He considers pulling Urahara away, toys with the idea of bringing him back home and seeing what develops over a bottle of shochu. But the drum beat picks up, Urahara completes his turn to end up with his back to Ichigo and they continue on, the moment lost.

  
***

They dance for a good twenty minutes, the movements coming back to Ichigo as he revolves around the bonfire. They’ve worked their way into the centre ring closest to the flames, their faces painted in flickering light.

But as Urahara turns to him now he begins to notice not a smile of enjoyment on his face but a grimace of exhaustion. He’s sweating, and his eyes are tight at the corners. He stumbles once, recovers himself, and stumbles again. 

Ichigo reaches out and catches his arm. “C’mon,” he says, and leads him out of the fray. 

They cross the park unevenly and head to the nearest bench, Urahara leaning heavily on his cane and dropping down onto it with a grateful sigh. 

“You should’ve said you’d had enough,” says Ichigo, irritated. Urahara cranes his head upwards and gives him a tired smile. 

“But you were having such a good time. For the first time in a long time, if I’m not mistaken.”

Ichigo reddens. “Health comes before amusement,” he answers, curtly. “Let me get you something to eat.”

Urahara waves this suggestion away. “I don’t need to eat.”

“A drink, then.” He makes to go, and a warm hand catches his wrist. The shop keeper must have moved with lightning speed to have grabbed him as he was turning. 

“Should you really be waiting on me?” he asks, eyes watchful beneath the brim of his hat.

“I do as I please,” replies Ichigo. He shakes free of Urahara’s grip and hurries off. 

There’s a stand selling cold drinks infused with flavoured honey nearby; he stops and buys a glass of yuzu-flavour. The vendor attempts to give him a discount, which he waves away. He returns with the drink to where Urahara’s sitting, slouched on the bench. 

“Here,” he says, and presents it.

“So thoughtful,” murmurs Urahara, and takes it. He drinks deeply, downing nearly half the glass at once. His hand is shaking slightly. 

Ichigo drops down beside him, watching him. He’s even paler than before, his face noticeably drawn now. “What’ve you been doing to yourself?” he asks, frowning. 

Urahara finishes drinking and rests the now-empty glass on his knee. “The life of a small businessman is precarious, Shiba-sama,” he says with an easy grin. 

“You work in the store all day, and then fix what you take in all night. Is that it?”

Urahara just gives him a silent smile.

“Why not hire some staff? If you can afford the rent here, you must be able to afford that.”

“I prefer to work alone,” replies the shop keeper. 

Ichigo scowls. “Even your secrets have secrets.”

Urahara beams. “What a delightful way of putting it.”

“You should take better care of yourself.”

“Are you worried about me, Shiba-sama?” he asks, tilting his head coyly to the side. 

“If you collapse and lose your business, I’m not going to be able to solve the mystery, am I?” 

To his surprise, Urahara reaches out and pats his hand. “Thank you for your concern,” he says, and then stands. “I think I will return, now. Tonight, at least, I don’t have to work.”

Ichigo stands as well. “I’ll walk you home.”

  
***

They return by the back alleys, dark streets unstrung with lanterns, from which the stars are visible above. The sounds of the drums are still audible in the distance, rumbling like far-off lightning.

“Were there festivals, where you came from?” asks Ichigo. 

“No. There were hunts – great, bloodthirsty packs of men chasing down those unfortunate enough to become their targets – but the celebrations were of violence and death, not peace and joy. But I do remember them. From my former life.”

Ichigo kicks a stone. “I was born here; I can’t imagine what it must be like, to remember another life before this one.”

“Painful, sometimes. But I’m grateful for it. Without the knowledge I came here with, I would not be here today. In the district I came to, any scrap of knowledge or skill was an advantage to be exploited. A chance at life. And even then…” He shakes his head. “Those days are behind me. Forever, I hope.”

“You’re a successful businessman now,” says Ichigo. “You never have to go back.” 

Urahara smiles gently. “Life is precarious, Shiba-san. You can’t know what it will bring. All you can do is work your hardest to make the life you want.”

Ichigo is suddenly conscious of the fact that, while he works hard, he has never had to work for his livelihood – and never will. Of all the people living in the first district, few work hand-to-mouth. Urahara is one of them. 

“I would help you,” he says, suddenly, recklessly. “If you needed it. You could come to me.”

He hardly knows this man, and doesn’t understand his business. And yet, the thought of Urahara losing his livelihood and slipping back into the appalling life from which he came is painful – is anathema to him. And, after all, what is a noble for if not to look after those who depend on him?

Urahara stops. He turns to face Ichigo, takes off his hat, and bows – the first time Ichigo has ever seen him do so. “Thank you for your support, Shiba-san.” Without the hat he looks little like the humorous shopkeeper. His face has a slightly ironic cast to it, but his silver eyes are serious. It’s the face, thinks Ichigo, of one who has stared hardship in the eye and refused to bend. 

Then the moment is past, and Urahara’s putting his hat back on and grinning. “But I am in no danger of calling on you,” he says. 

Ichigo smiles. “Glad to hear it.”

They come out of the alley behind the Shiba compound and walk up to Urahara’s storefront. “Thank you for the dance, Shiba-san,” he says, producing his key from his sleeve. “I enjoyed it.”

“Maybe we could have a drink, some night,” suggests Ichigo, loath to let this evening go. 

“I would like that.” He unlocks the door and pulls it open. “Good night, Shiba-san,” he says, and steps into the darkness beyond.


	4. Silver in the Stars

The family is starting to plan for Karin’s going away party. She’ll be joining the Academy ranks come the fall, living in the dorms provided in Seireitei for all students regardless of their backgrounds. The party will be lavish, thrown with no consideration to cost and attended by members of the main Shiba family as well as by other local nobles. 

Ichigo is expecting it to be an emotional event, particularly for Yuzu who has never been without her twin before. But he’s still surprised when she shows up at his door in tears two days before the dinner. He hears her quiet footsteps stop in front of his office door while he’s working on the household account books, hears her sobs through the shoji. He gets up and opens the door to find her there, crying into the sleeve of her kimono.

“Ichi-ni!” 

He blinks down at her, surprised. “Yuzu! Karin’s not even gone yet!” He reaches out and draws her into his office; she huddles against him. 

“Ichi-ni! It’s terrible!”

“I know it will be hard, with Karin leaving and everything, but it will only be for a few years…” Much longer, of course, if she’s appointed to the Gotei 13, but now’s not the time to bring that up.

Yuzu shakes her head. “Not that.” She pulls her sleeve back to reveal her hand, wrapped around something small and delicate. She opens her fingers to reveal a broken kanzashi. It’s gold, with a jasmine flower delicately wrought at the end. His mother’s flower. The prongs are snapped in half, shards lying crookedly on her palm.

“Dad gave it to me after mom died, and I was going to give it to Karin so she’d have something to remind her of home.” She sniffs. “But I tripped while I was taking it to wrap it, and it… it… _broke!_ ” She wails. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s okay, Yuzu. C’mon.” He pats her head while she sniffles into his shoulder. “We can get it fixed.”

“But the dinner’s the day after tomorrow. And it’s so delicate…”

Ichigo closes his hand over hers, the kanzashi encircled in the centre of their grips. “That’s not a problem. Come with me. Come on.”

  
***

He takes her out the side entrance and across the street where, thank the gods, there’s no line. Tarnishing his reputation by frequenting a merchant is one thing, tarnishing Yuzu’s is another. She looks at the store’s sign with puzzlement, but follows him inside.

Urahara is sweeping the floor behind the counter when they come in; his face brightens at Ichigo’s arrival, and then turns to an expression of polite interest at Yuzu’s entrance. “This is my sister,” says Ichigo. “Shiba Yuzu.”

“Pleased to meet you, miss,” says Urahara, extending his casualness to her. “Welcome to my store.”

Yuzu gives him a shy half-smile. 

Ichigo takes the kanzashi, which he had wrapped in a handkerchief, and places it carefully on the counter. “It’s an heirloom,” he says. “And a gift.”

Urahara takes it up carefully, looking at the floral decoration at the end. “A beautiful gift,” he says. 

“Can you really fix it?” asks Yuzu. He looks down at her and smiles kindly.

“But of course.”

“He can fix anything,” Ichigo tells her, giving Urahara a wry look; the shop keeper grins. 

“Really?” asks Yuzu, curiously. 

“Really,” agrees Urahara. “A little thing like this is no problem. It will be done tomorrow.” 

Yuzu half-reaches for it, then pulls her hand back. “Take good care of it. Please.”

“But of course, miss.” Urahara bows over it, a gesture respecting not her position but her personal charm. “The price will be ten mon.”

“You know,” Ichigo says, “if you charged more you could work less.”

Yuzu gives him a puzzled look, but Urahara smiles. “A very logical way to look at it! But it’s important to me that I can serve people from all walks of life. Perhaps, then I should have a sliding scale based on income?”

“That would countermand the district’s business rules,” replies Ichigo, playing up his role as a local magistrate. “But you should respect your work more, all the same.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.” Urahara waves them out of the store.

“Who _is_ that guy?” asks Yuzu, as they cross the street. “He’s very peculiar.”

“He’s… a friend,” says Ichigo, who in all honesty doesn’t know what Urahara is. 

Yuzu stops and stares at him. “Ichi-ni, you have a friend?”

“I have friends!”

“Yes, but they’re all from… you know, from at the Academy,” she says, finishing the sentence more quietly. It’s been a long time since anyone spoke about his time at the Academy in front of him. “It’s great – that you’re making new friends!” she continues on, hurriedly, as if to blot out her earlier words. “Even if they are strange men in odd hats.”

“Ha ha,” says Ichigo, opening the gate for her. She glides in, her earlier tears completely forgotten.

  
***

The next day Yuzu is too busy with the preparations for the feast to run errands, so Ichigo goes back on his own to the repair shop to collect the kanzashi.

“Your sister is charming,” says Urahara, producing it still wrapped in Ichigo’s handkerchief.

“Yeah, she’s the polite one. Karin – my other sister – is going to the Academy soon. She’ll fit right in; she’s been an incorrigible tomboy and obsessed with swords since she was 5. She can’t wait to get her Zanpaku-to.”

“I understand it’s very meaningful,” says Urahara, politely.

Ichigo feels his hand fisting. “It’s a piece of your soul,” he replies, quietly. To change the subject, he reaches out and uncovers the kanzashi; it gleams in the low light, gold shimmering. The prongs are once again perfect, stretching out from the jasmine flower. He senses Urahara’s eyes on him as he appreciates it, both the splendour of the kanzashi and the flawlessness of the repair. 

“Thank you.” Ichigo wraps it up again and slips it into his sleeve. 

“You have many beautiful things in your family,” says Urahara, folding his hands together on the counter. His smile is subtle, just a hint of appreciation. 

“We’ve had a long time to collect them.” Ichigo fishes out the payment. “I meant what I said yesterday: you could charge more. You still look tired,” he adds, assessing Urahara’s shadowed eyes. 

“Nonsense,” replies Urahara cheerily. “I’m fit as a fiddle.”

Ichigo gives him an unimpressed look; he fails to wilt. “I’ll see you later, then,” says Ichigo, with something like reluctance.

Urahara’s bright smile is clearly a mask, but it gives nothing away. “Of course, Shiba-san.”

  
***

Karin’s going away party is the next day. Shiba Kaien and Kuukaku attend, cheerful as always. Karin is quietly excited; Yuzu is quietly terrified. But she presents the kanzashi to Karin without crying. Isshin gets roaring drunk and has to be carried out.

The next day their father (very subdued) escorts Karin to Seireitei, Yuzu and Ichigo staying behind at the East gate while they pass through into the new world beyond. Yuzu waves until they disappear from sight; Ichigo drapes an arm over her shoulder and feels her shrink into his side.

“She’ll be happy there,” says Ichigo. Yuzu nods, sniffling. “And she’ll come back to visit.”

“You didn’t,” sniffs Yuzu.

That year is still so vivid in his memory that all the subsequent ones seem bland and colourless as paste. The delight of feeling Zangetsu thrumming in his hand and hearing his voice in his dreams, the satisfaction of harnessing his reiatsu, the novelty of having friends who were equals and unrestrained by class distinctions. 

But those days are over, never to be repeated.

“I came back for good,” he says, heavily.

“Not because you wanted to,” replies Yuzu sadly, and turns to leave him standing alone, looking through the gate. He pulls himself away and follows her home.

  
***

It’s late. Ichigo’s sitting alone in his room, drinking quietly; unlike his father he does his drinking in private.

He never realized how much harder it is to be the one that stays behind. How hard it would be to see Karin leave for the life that he was denied. 

He takes another drink.

His eyes fall on Zangetsu, silent and still in his stand, dust accumulating on the razor-sharp blade. 

He takes another drink. 

Outside his window, an owl hoots. On a whim, Ichigo rises and opens the window, looking out on the garden beyond. The air is still warm with the tail end of summer, although there’s a crispness to it that speaks of the impending fall. He leans out but can’t see the sky from beneath the roof’s overhand. 

Irritated, and a little drunk, he hops over the window frame and out into the garden beyond. The engawa’s smooth wood is cool under his feet; the wind plays softly in the maple trees and sweeps past to rustle his hair. 

He looks out over the compound wall and sees, directly across from him, the angled roof of Urahara’s store. 

And, sitting atop it, the shop keeper.

For a minute, Ichigo stares. Then he raises a hand to rub at his eyes. Blinks. Urahara’s dark form is still there, sitting on the roof, head craned back. 

Ichigo takes one step of shunpo, and lands beside him. “What the _hell_ are you doing up here?” he demands, leaning his weight against the roof’s gentle angle. 

Urahara looks up at him. He’s sitting cross-legged, hands resting on his knees. “Stargazing,” he says, easily. “Haven’t you ever stargazed before, Shiba-san? It’s best done from roofs.”

Ichigo doesn’t deign to look up. “How did you even get up here?”

“I have a ladder.” Urahara waves his hand at the back of the roof, where Ichigo can just barely see the top prongs of a ladder. “Or did you picture me climbing up the side of the building?” he asks, with humour. 

“I really don’t know what I expected from you,” he huffs. And then, abruptly, he sits down beside Urahara, the righteous indignation draining from him as if a plug had been pulled. “I thought you’d be working.”

“I finished early.” He cranes his neck backwards, staring up from beneath the heavy brim of his hat. “Is your sister gone?”

“Yep. Forever, probably. I mean, she’ll be back for visits, but… the Gotei 13 will become her life.”

Urahara glances over at him. “You sound…”

“Bitter?”

“Sad.”

Ichigo gives a brief bark of laughter. “That’s generous of you. And I am. Sad. But… I remember when I used to believe I could have a different life than this one. I don’t want her to end up like me.”

“There are few people who would consider you unlucky, Shiba-san.”

Ichigo sighs. “You’re right. And it’s pathetic of me to complain to you. My life is charmed.”

“Now you sound bitter,” says Urahara, and Ichigo can hear the smile in his voice. “Look up.”

“What?”

“Look up,” repeats Urahara. Ichigo does, slowly craning his head back to look at the moon and stars. They hang brightly in the firmament, distant but beautiful. “No matter how alone, how lost, how disappointed you are, they’re always there. In every district in Rukongai, from the First to the Eightieth, they’re there. In Seireitei they’re there, watching over your sister. They’re a poor man’s silver, a rich man’s jewels, and a noble’s companionship.”

“We’re not that distant,” protests Ichigo.

“Aren’t you? You attended the festival all alone – without even your family for company.”

“So did you.”

“A poor shop keeper may attend a festival alone. But the heir to the Shiba branch house?”

“So what? You’re telling me I’m lonely and pathetic?”

“I’m telling you that you’re never alone, no matter how it may seem.”

Ichigo leans back, resting his weight on his elbows. “Well, that’s true. You’re here.”

There’s a moment of silence. “That’s not quite what I meant, Shiba-san.” He sounds surprised, but not displeased.

“But it’s true. Or isn’t it?”

“You’re right of course, Shiba-san. I’m here with you. In fact, there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

“Good.” Ichigo stares up at the sky, the stars shining like pinpricks. “So, did you bring anything to drink?”


	5. Burnt Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We reach the point at which so many questions have amassed they begin to bubble over into answers.

It doesn’t get easier. Karin’s departure is an open wound in their much-reduced family, a source of melancholy for Yuzu and biting envy for Ichigo. 

He tries throwing himself into his work, but can’t find any inspiration there, can’t find anything other than daily monotony that threatens to overwhelm him. The brief taste of freedom he experienced at the festival is gone as though it never was, and occasionally looking out of his window to see the Repair Shop’s roof doesn’t bring it back. 

In a compound of a hundred people, he’s desperately alone. 

But pity doesn’t get work done. So he buries himself in his papers and tables and reports, and tries to forget that there’s an outside world.

Until it comes knocking.

  
***

He’s having a drink late one night when he hears a commotion outside his window. The sounds of a crowd gathering, of shouts and cries.

Ichigo opens his window and, beyond the pale shadow of the compound wall, sees the roof of the Repair Shop. 

Sees the smoke billowing up from under it.

He jumps over his window sill without a second thought, and in his bare feet takes a step of shunpo to land on the far side of the wall. People are gathering to stare at the smoke and flames licking up from inside the shop. They rise behind its back like an eldritch sunset, framing the building in eerie red light. 

“Don’t just stand there,” shouts Ichigo, pushing to the front of the crowd. “Get some water!”

He hurries up to the front door and yanks it – it’s locked. He bangs on the slatted wood: “Urahara! Urahara! _Kisuke!_ ”

There’s no answer. Stepping back, he calls his memory back to his year of training. “Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hadou 31: Shakkahou!” The red blast shoots out from his palm and destroys the door, releasing a black stream of smoke. 

“Shiba-sama!” calls someone from behind him; he ignores them and darts inside. 

The smoke is thick and acrid; the air is hot on his skin and in his lungs. It’s hotter than the height of summer, hotter than standing beside the bonfire at the lantern festival. But there are no flames here, just an oppressive atmosphere. Even without fire, he couldn’t survive in it for long. He ducks down low and scurries through the open doorway to the back room. And sees the flames.

They’re eating their way up the walls and across the ceiling in a thick, red-tongued sea. Embers are raining down from the ceiling like shooting stars, burning in his hair and on the back of his neck. The floor is bare earth and is untouched, but here and there the few articles of furniture are aflame. A desk has gone up like an effigy; beside it toppled on the ground lies a still-burning candle. 

There’s no machinery, no tools in the space. No intricate workshop crammed full of equipment. Just a large, empty room. And, in one corner, a straw mattress topped by a dark heap blanketed under a winter kimono. The sleeve of the kimono is on fire, flames racing up the silk towards its back.

“Kisuke!” Coughing, eyes watering, he races over and rips the kimono off. Urahara is lying slumped on the mattress, asleep or unconscious. His right arm is badly burned, the green fabric of his jinbei blackened and charred. He’s struggling to breathe, face red and sweaty. Ichigo reaches out and shakes him, hard. “Wake up! Kisuke!” 

He’s on his knees now but the smoke is too thick to avoid, filling the entire space. He’s choking on its thick oiliness, can barely breathe. Urahara stiffens under his grip, coughing. Overhead the flames roar like a distant crowd, impatient and ominous, hungry to consume them.

They don’t have time for this.

Ichigo reaches down, grabs Urahara’s good wrist, and drags him up over his shoulder. Urahara’s coughing hard, now, and wriggling. 

Ichigo turns to leave, and is interrupted by a fist pounding on his shoulder. “Benihime,” coughs Urahara. And then, grasping at the back of Ichigo’s kimono, “ _Benihime!_ Don’t leave her.”

_A cat?_ wonders Ichigo. _Some other pet?_ Whatever it is, it can make it out on its own. 

Urahara gives an immense roll, nearly flipping himself out of Ichigo’s grip. “My cane,” he says, reaching backwards. Ichigo turns and through a veil of smoke sees the bland wooden cane lying on the ground. Benihime? There’s no time to think. He ducks down and picks it up. The air is so thick with smoke that he can no longer see; he’s getting dizzy from lack of oxygen. “Hadou 31, Shakkaho,” he mutters, holding his hand up to the back wall. Without the incantation the blast is much smaller, but it’s enough. He ducks through the hole and hauls Urahara out after. 

A few moments later, the roof caves in.

  
***

The bucket chains have gotten organized from the neighbouring homes and compounds and the water pump is on its way. Ichigo, still coughing and feeling like his lungs are corroding within him, drags Urahara up onto his back again and makes his way through the crowd, ignoring the efforts of others to take his burden from him.

He’s escorted into the Shiba compound by several retainers; he sends one for a doctor and another to bring water and clean cloths to his quarters. 

He makes it to his room and collapses onto the floor, Urahara spilling off his back to lie in a huddled heap beside him, smelling of smoke and ash. For a few minutes Ichigo squats like a dog on his hands and knees, half coughing, half-retching, although nothing comes up. His vision is pulsing at the edges, his heart thrumming in his ears. The heat of the fire slowly seeps out of his clothes and skin. 

As his vision clears, Ichigo turns to look at Urahara. His breathing is raspy, his face grey and streaked with soot. The skin of his right hand and forearm, Ichigo can see now, is wetly red, shiny and blistered. His eyes are closed tightly, jaw tense. 

“Kisuke?” asks Ichigo – the name comes naturally to him. 

Urahara’s eyes flicker, but don’t open. 

“I’ve called a doctor,” he says, reaching out and gently rolling the shop keeper over while holding his burnt arm carefully still to keep it from touching the tatami. 

“Benihime,” mutters Urahara.

“It’s fine – it’s here.” He looks down to the cane at his feet – probably, as Yoruichi’s spies had said, a shikomizue. “It’s right here, Kisuke.”

Urahara’s jaw slackens and his head lolls to the side as he drops down the well of unconsciousness.

  
***

By the time the water arrives, Ichigo has mostly composed himself. He takes the basin from the servant and sends him away, putting it down carefully on the tatami and wetting a cloth. Ichigo carefully bathes Urahara’s burnt skin, soaking his arm in a wide basin of cold water and keeping it submerged.

The doctor – a middle-aged man named Nakatani, who has been Ichigo’s physician since childhood – comes hurrying in a few minutes later, carrying his box of physic and blinking tiredly through thick wire-framed glasses. It’s past midnight now, but most of Tensei will be awake with the news of an uncontained fire. 

Ichigo can still feel the charring in his lungs, is still breathing roughly. Urahara is fighting for breath, coughing every few minutes. Nakatani settles down beside the prone man and calls a green glow of kaidou, hands hovering over Urahara’s chest. The shop keeper’s breathing slowly eases. 

“How are you feeling, Shiba-sama?” asks Nakatani, glancing over at him in concern.

“I’m fine. Help him,” says Ichigo curtly, suppressing a cough. 

“He’s healing already. The damage to his lungs is not severe. It will take a few days to repair the damage done to his arm,” he says, looking at the reddened limb soaking in the porcelain basin. 

“But you can heal it?”

“Yes.”

Ichigo lets out a sigh. “Good. Thanks, Doctor.”

“You could get some rest,” suggests the doctor.

“I’d rather wait up.”

  
***

He loses track of time, sitting beside Nakatani watching him first heal Urahara’s airway, and then his arm. After a while Ichigo gets up to set up his futon – usually, of course, a servant would do it, but they’re all outside fighting the fire. He probably should be concerned for his own property; it would only take a gust of wind to spread the flames to the Shiba compound. But all he’s worried about is Urahara. The shop keeper’s face is still grey, pained even in unconsciousness.

As time ticks by, Ichigo feels himself descending further and further into a haze. He’s convinced he could somehow be helping but can’t imagine how, can only watch the warm glow of Nakatani’s kaidou slowly knitting the skin back together on Urahara’s forearm. His hands and feet begin to grow cold, then slowly numb. His head starts to nod.

“Shiba-sama?”

Ichigo jerks awake to see Nakatani looking at him, the doctor’s thin face tight with concern. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” mutters Ichigo, straightening. 

“Your guest will be alright now. I will come back in the afternoon to look at his arm again.”

Ichigo looks down to see that Urahara’s injured limb has been bandaged up, the white of the gauze very stark against his charred jinbei. 

“Of course. Thank you.”

“You’re sure you’re alright?”

“Yes,” says Ichigo, waving away his concern. 

The doctor rises and bows. “Until tomorrow, Shiba-sama.”

He departs, closing the door silently behind him. Leaving Ichigo alone with Urahara. He looks down at the unconscious man. He still has streaks of soot on his face and dark singes in his blond hair. Ichigo gets up, coughing, and crosses to pull a folded yukata from his closet. He returns and carefully shifts Urahara out of his dirty jinbei and into the clean cotton. Despite his broad shoulders and strong hands he is thin and bony beneath the green cloth, ribs visible under his pale skin and hip bones jutting out above his fundoshi.

Ichigo uses a damp cloth to clean the soot from Urahara’s face, passing it carefully over his strong cheekbones and the sharp line of his jaw, and down into the pale curve of his throat. Urahara’s hair, charred in places, shines dully in the soft light as it pools around his face. Ichigo feels a flutter of some unknown emotion in his chest as he does so, something strong and protective. 

When he’s done, he picks up Urahara carefully in his arms and carries him across the room, putting him down in his own bed and covering him with his blanket. Ichigo brings the cane – Benihime? – over and lays it down beside Urahara.

It’s just as he’s sitting down that he hears footsteps outside the door. “Shiba-sama?”

“Yes,” he says, turning tiredly to face the door. It’s opened by one of his retainers.

“The fire has been put out, Shiba-sama. The buildings on the other side both suffered minor damage. There is no risk to the Shiba compound.”

“Thank you,” he says, and watches the door slide closed.

Only then does he lie down on the bare tatami and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  
***

He wakes up slowly with the taste of ashes in his mouth. He stretches and feels hard tatami underneath him. He opens his eyes, puzzled.

It’s only when he sees Urahara seated next to him on his own futon that he remembers the events of the previous night. The fire. The empty back room. Urahara, stretched out like an empty gigai on his straw mattress. 

He sits up abruptly and feels his blanket slither off into a heap beside him.

Urahara looks over. He’s sitting straight-backed, his injured arm tucked in against his stomach and his cane across his knee. Without his hat he looks somehow vulnerable, younger and less secure than Ichigo’s image of him. But perhaps that’s the effect of the fire. 

“This is your room,” he says, voice low and rough. It’s not a question.

“Your shop caught fire. I brought you here,” says Ichigo. “You needed a doctor.”

“I see one has been,” he replies, partially raising his bandaged arm. “And someone brought my cane,” he adds, resting his good hand on it.

“You wouldn’t go without it. You don’t remember?” If Benihime had been a Zanpaku-to, it would have made more sense. But Urahara has no trace of reiatsu to him, and the cane felt cold and lifeless beneath Ichigo’s grip.

Urahara shakes his head. “Unfortunately not,” he says, softly. And then, eyes widening, “The shop – my commissions!”

“Probably toast. The place went up like thatch, and the roof caved in right after I got you out.”

Urahara stares at him, anxiety turning to confusion. “You came in after me?”

“The place was on fire!”

“That’s a good reason to stay out.”

“The door was locked – I knew you were still inside. I couldn’t just leave you to burn,” says Ichigo, shuddering at the thought. The memory of finding Urahara beneath the burning kimono, of how close he came to death, sends a cold chill through him. Last night he had been too shocked to take in the what-ifs. Today they rain down on him like fiery arrows, their unrealised impact scorching him. 

“I’m lucky to have such a friend,” says Urahara. “Even if he’s been distant of late,” he adds, with just a little of his usual wryness.

“I had a relapse,” says Ichigo, dryly. 

Urahara’s eyebrows rise. “What of?”

“Self pity.”

“In relation to?” asks Urahara. Ichigo nods to Zangetsu, without looking.

“That’s a Zanpaku-to,” says Urahara, conversationally.

“Yes.”

“ _Your_ Zanpaku-to.”

Ichigo sighs. “Yes.”

“You’re a Shinigami.”

“Not anymore.” He turns to look at Zangetsu, the steel of the blade a dull, lifeless grey. “I attended the Academy for a year,” he begins, slowly, crossing his legs and settling his weight. “When I was younger – Karin and Yuzu’s age. My family has a tendency towards strong reiatsu; I was no exception. In fact, mine was – is – really strong. _Really_ strong. I blasted through every challenge they threw at me; I would have been a seated officer on graduation and even a captain in a few years.” He turns to look at Urahara. “That was the problem.”

Urahara gives him a questioning look.

“The heir of the Shiba main house is Shiba Kaien-sama. He’s currently a vice-captain in the 13th. Someday he’ll make captain, but not for a while. It was inconceivable that a member of the branch house might beat him to it. So I was pulled from the Academy and tasked with an administrative role too important to back out of. I told them I wouldn’t take a promotion above Kaien-sama, of course, but…” He shakes his head. “If when he’s ready for a captaincy one’s not available, my father might step down in his favour. That’s the power the main house has over us.” 

“I’ve heard Shinigami speak with their swords,” says Urahara, glancing at the Zanpaku-to. “What does he think?”

“I don’t hear him anymore,” replies Ichigo flatly. “It’s better that way.” He says it with confidence, and at the heart of it he does believe it to be true – better an empty void than starving screams. 

“I’m sorry,” says Urahara, and to Ichigo’s surprise he sounds it. Sounds like he understands. 

“I should be thankful for what I have.”

“To set fire to one’s dreams is not a point of pride, Shiba-san.”

“I think,” says Ichigo, rising and stretching stiffly – his lungs still sting as he draws in a deep breath – “that after last night we might be on a first name basis. Or don’t you agree?”

Urahara – Kisuke – blinks. And then smiles. “I’m honoured, Ichigo-san.”


	6. Stay

Walking around the room, Ichigo crosses the space between himself and Zangetsu. The sword’s shadow on the wood beneath its stand is as sharp as the blade, a line between light and dark. 

The companionship he feels now, the sharp stab of fear and panic that drove him into a burning building after Kisuke, are things he hasn’t felt since the Academy. Things he had almost forgotten he could feel. That emptiness has been a void in his life, slowly swallowing his motivation and energy. This new spark kindling inside him feels weak and vulnerable – but full of potential. He rubs his hand absently on his chest, as if stoking it. 

Kisuke has fallen into silence; looking back around Ichigo sees that he’s quietly watching Ichigo, grey eyes thoughtful. 

“Kisuke?”

“Is there really no way for you to pursue your dream?” he asks. 

Ichigo snorts tiredly. “Oh, there are ways. I’ve had invites from plenty of divisions – Yoruichi is constantly trying to pull me into the 2nd. It’s the consequences that matter. If I went as Shiba Ichigo, the rest of my family would suffer. The main house would decimate us – financially and socially. Karin would lose her place in the Academy; Yuzu would lose our home. If I turned my back on my name and broke off from the clan…” He swallows. “By our own rules, I would not be welcome here anymore. And if my family tried to break those rules, they would suffer the same consequences. My mother died when I was a child, and that loss nearly tore us apart. I can’t cut myself out of my family – I can’t do that to them. And I don’t want to,” he says, chin rising defiantly. 

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked,” says Kisuke, delicately. 

Ichigo waves away his concern. “It’s not something I talk about anymore. But how could you understand if I didn’t?”

Kisuke smiles gently. “I appreciate your trust.” 

“And besides – why are we talking about me? Are _you_ okay?”

Kisuke considers, face almost humorously thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” he says, eventually. “I will have to see the damage. I had many orders in the store – if people have lost their goods…”

“They’ll have to lump it,” says Ichigo, pitilessly. “They’re not the ones who just lost their livelihoods.”

“Oh, I can rebuild. Move back to one of the lower districts and start again where the rent is more manageable.”

His words are like a blow to the gut. Ichigo feels his heart constrict, and misses the shop keeper’s next few words. They end with, “… really don’t understand what happened.” He looks almost plaintively puzzled. Like a diligent student who has added 2 and 2 and come up with 5. 

“I’ll tell you what happened,” says Ichigo, rounding on him with some heat. “You refused to pare down your work to a manageable amount, and you collapsed. A candle overturned on your desk and caused the fire, and you were too exhausted to wake up when the fire spread.”

“You’re angry.”

“You nearly died!” flares Ichigo. _And now you’re talking about leaving._

Kisuke nods, disturbingly complacent. “I suppose so. Yes.” 

“Doesn’t that concern you?”

“It does,” admits Kisuke. “But I remember dying once before. And I lived for a long time in death’s shadow. It no longer holds the terror it once did. I am more concerned about your foolhardiness, racing into a burning building on the edge of collapse.”

“We’ve been over that. You may not value your life highly, but I do.” It’s true, he realises as he says it. He does. Kisuke is the one person in years of drowning in monotony who has reached him. Who has offered him a glimpse of a world outside his monochrome life. 

If Kisuke leaves, he fears the grey waters will close in over his head again.

“I want you to stay,” he says, suddenly. Kisuke’s brows furrow.

“Stay?”

“Here. There’s plenty of space – I have the run of this wing. You’ll be a guest, of course – so you won’t have to worry about bleeding funds while you start your business up again. If you need money, I can lend it to you.”

“That’s very kind, Ichigo-san, but –”

“Say you’ll stay,” cuts in Ichigo, crossing the room and dropping down beside him. “You don’t have anywhere else to go, do you?”

“No, but…”

“Then stay.”

Kisuke stares for a moment, then breaks into a slow, simple smile. “You drive a hard bargain,” he says. “But if you insist that I avail myself of your hospitality, I suppose I have no choice. I accept.”

Ichigo nods firmly. “Good.”

  
***

There’s a lot still to discuss. For one thing, Kisuke’s apparent ambivalence towards the prospect of his death; for another, the empty back room of his shop – utterly uninhabited by any sort of tools or machinery.

But for the moment Kisuke is weak and recovering, and he himself is famished and oily with soot. Not an ideal time to broach difficult conversations. Instead he orders a meal to be brought and starts changing out of his clothes. He’s just beginning to consider moving Kisuke to a zabuton before word gets out that the shop keeper spent the night in his bed, when running footsteps come pounding down the hall.

Ichigo and Kisuke both turn to look at the door. It flies open, nearly ripped off its runners. 

Yuzu is standing there, hand clasped on the doorframe, eyes wide and fearful. “Ichi-ni! You went into the burning building?!” she demands, panting slightly. As she takes in the scene in front of her – Ichigo half-naked, Kisuke in one of his yukatas in Ichigo’s bed – her eyes grow wide and round. A light blush comes into her cheeks. 

“It’s not what it looks like,” says Ichigo quickly, while beside him Kisuke gives an almost soundless laugh. “He needed medical attention, so he stayed here. And I need clean clothes,” he adds.

“You need a bath,” says Yuzu, stepping in and coming over to inspect his sooty skin and charred hair. 

“After breakfast.”

“Lunch, you mean,” she says. “It’s part 11:30.”

Ichigo looks over at his clock and sees she’s right. He slept all morning. 

“And anyway,” she continues, poking an accusatory finger into Ichigo’s chest. “What were you doing going into a burning building?” her tone is part scolding, part fearful. 

“I’m sorry miss,” says Kisuke, from his place on the futon. “It was my fault. My shop caught fire and I was overcome by smoke in my sleep. Ichigo-san rescued me. He was kind enough to give me a place to sleep last night.”

Somehow Kisuke’s politeness sounds far more genuine when addressed to Yuzu than to Ichigo. Not that Ichigo minds the shop keeper’s teasing wryness. “He’ll be my guest for a while – until he gets back on his feet.”

“That’s great, Ichi-ni,” says Yuzu, beaming. He realises, looking at her smiling face, that she isn’t for one second buying his excuses about last night. But she’s still happy for him, and that’s what matters.

“Yeah,” he says, and glances down at Kisuke. “It is.”

  
***

They eat lunch when it comes (devour would be a better word), and then Ichigo proposes going to the onsen. Kisuke’s brow wrinkles at this. “The nearest onsen isn’t open at this time in the afternoon.”

“We have our own,” replies Ichigo, smiling. 

Dressed in matching yukata, they make the trip through the Shiba compound. Kisuke, unable to use his cane with his bandaged arm, walks at a slow pace and Ichigo checks his own to stay at his side. 

“Have you always needed a cane?” he asks. There’s no sign of deformation, nor any obvious scar on the pale skin of his lower leg.

“No. It’s an old injury. A badly-healed break. We didn’t have healers in the lower districts,” he says, raising his carefully-bandaged arm as a testament to the care he received here. 

“You’re very attached to your cane. Benihime?”

Kisuke stops, eyes widening a sliver. Circled by a sea of steel-grey, his pupils are pin-points. His face looks frozen, a mild smile stiff and strained. 

“You called for it. Wouldn’t let me leave without it. That’s why I brought it with me; I didn’t think I’d be able to get you out without it.”

The frozen look melts away, leaving Kisuke looking slightly relieved. “I see,” he says. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s been my only companion for the past fifteen years, and the only thing I didn’t barter or trade on my journey upwards. Sentimentality can be foolish.”

Having wended their way through buildings and annexes, they arrive at the large space reserved for the onsen. It’s bisected by a tall wall, one half for men and one for women. There’s a large, comfortable changing space with towels and yukata provided, then a washing room and finally the open space of the onsen itself. 

Ichigo and Kisuke change out of their clothes, handing them to the attendant who folds them carefully and tucks them away to be cleaned – they will be issued new ones when they leave. Ichigo catches himself staring at the long line of Kisuke’s spine, his back criss-crossed with pale silver scars. He knows, suddenly, that having his shop burn down with him in it may not have been the worst thing the shop keeper has experienced since he came to Rukongai, and swallows thickly. 

The servant comes with them into the washing room, ready to help them rinse the oil and grime from their bodies. Ichigo sees Kisuke’s jaw tighten at the sight of the man, his shoulders tense. “We can manage ourselves,” he says, and sends the servant scurrying off. The weight drops from Kisuke’s stiff frame. 

“I guess you’ve never had anyone to help you with these things,” Ichigo says, sitting down on one of the small wooden stools provided and taking up a sponge from a trough of warm water. 

“No,” says Kisuke, flatly, sitting down beside him and doing the same, somewhat awkwardly with his left hand. And then, apparently realising the curtness of his tone, “I’ve met many wonderful people in my travels. But very few in my first years in this world – and that has rather coloured my point of view. I find it difficult to trust strangers.”

“You trust me.”

Kisuke smiles, a hint of teeth showing. “Yes. But I know quite a bit about you, Ichigo-san. I’m afraid most of the district is made up of hopeless gossips, and you’re a keen source of interest.”

Ichigo flushes. “So you’ve been researching me,” he says. As if he hadn’t requested a full dossier on Kisuke from Seireitei’s shadow assassins and information agents. 

Kisuke’s smile broadens. “Oh, it’s all been very favourable, I assure you,” he says. And then, more seriously, “In all honesty, I already knew what I needed to. That you’re honest and trustworthy, and a good friend.”

“I haven’t had many friends lately,” says Ichigo. “I’m out of practice.”

“Now you have me.” 

Ichigo finishes his clean by dumping a bucket of water over his head. Kisuke is only half done, hindered by his bandaged arm. “Want help?” Ichigo asks. Kisuke hands him the sponge.

He had been too tired last night, blood thundering in his ears and eyes partially fogged, to notice much about Kisuke’s long, lanky body when he changed his clothes. As he washes the pale skin he takes in the scars that tell the story of a desperate life, the scrawniness that tells of a struggle to survive.

But then why should Kisuke be so scrawny if he has no reiatsu, no need to eat? Ichigo frowns in puzzlement behind Kisuke’s back. Perhaps he was equally thin in his former life. 

“I should wash your hair,” he says as he finishes up. 

“Please.”

There’s shampoo provided alongside the soap; he avails himself of it and works it into Kisuke’s thick golden mop. The man shivers slightly under his fingers, and Ichigo wonders if this is the first time anyone has ever washed his hair, if he’s the first one Kisuke has trusted with this. Wonders, abruptly, if he has had lovers, and if so what they’ve been like. He takes his time, enjoying the silken feel of Kisuke’s hair and the warmth of his scalp. Enjoying having permission for this intimacy.

Finally, he finishes off by washing the suds from Kisuke’s hair, and then they’re ready to go in. There are wooden doors at the end of the washing room that lead into the onsen to preserve its heat and steam. They open them and step inside.

And Ichigo realises, as his lungs suddenly catch fire, how stupid an idea this was.

The thick wall of steam aggravates his still-smoke damaged lungs, as though hundreds of tiny embers suddenly were suddenly stoked to life. His lungs smoulder, throat closing and heart abruptly skipping into a racing pace. He coughs once, gasps, and then launches into a coughing fit that sends him to his knees. He can hardly draw in the air he needs to breathe, is coughing so hard he starts retching, on his hands and knees on the tiled floor. He can’t move, can’t think, can’t _breathe_. He can hear someone’s voice in his ears but he can’t make out the words, scrabbles desperately at the tiles with his fingers as his sight starts to throb at the edges. He feels his reiatsu spiking, feels the tiles beneath him splintering from the force of it. For a moment, he believes he feels a second reiatsu pushing back at his, meeting it steadily and calmly.

And then, suddenly, he’s being dragged upwards by the shoulders. He’s flipped onto his back and scooped up like a sack of rice, Kisuke’s face floating above his looking pinched and worried. And then they’re out of the moist, warm heat and into a drier, clear atmosphere. Both his reiatsu and the other, if it ever was, fade.

“Bring a doctor,” he hears Kisuke ordering someone, as he’s laid down on a bench. He rolls onto his side and continues to cough, but with the steam gone he can draw air into his lungs again, can feel the aggravation slowly abating. His hand is fisted, he slowly realises, around Kisuke’s good hand, holding on as if for dear life. 

“Kisuke,” he chokes out, unsure what even to ask.

“It’s alright. You’ll be fine,” says Kisuke, kneeling beside him on the floor. His hand is warm and smooth in Ichigo’s grip, his fingers locked securely around Ichigo’s hand. “You’ll be fine now.”

Ichigo closes his eyes to wait for the world to stop spinning.


	7. Recovery

He recovers his breath slowly. Kisuke has draped him with a towel and dressed himself in one of the family yukata provided – white and blue vertical stripes, with a navy obi. He looks better in green, Ichigo thinks, thoughts a little scattered. His eyes keep sweeping back to the narrow line of Kisuke’s waist and hips, their slimness accentuated by the obi slung across them. He blinks dizzily, and tries to sit up.

“No, no,” Kisuke pushes him down with a sing-song tone, smiling slightly. “Not yet.”

He’s right; Ichigo’s head is still spinning, his lungs still burning although it’s passed into something dully lingering rather than the intense fiery sensation he’d experienced in the onsen. Slowly his vision stabilizes, his thoughts coalescing. He manages to stop staring at Kisuke like a love-struck schoolboy and to turn his thoughts to the matter of getting the hell out of the changing room. 

When he tries to sit up a second time Kisuke doesn’t stop him, although he does watch him intensely. 

“I’m alright now,” says Ichigo, voice sandpaper-rough. Kisuke raises an eyebrow. “Okay, maybe not 100%,” he adds. He’s still partially wet; he uses the towel to dry himself off, then finds that Kisuke has produced a second yukata. “Thanks.”

He stands warily, Kisuke on hand in case he wobbles, but his dizziness has abated and he’s able to put on the yukata without trouble. “Right,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Kisuke frowns. “Go where?”

“Back to my room – I’m not staying here all day.” The changing room is panelled exorbitantly in cedar and supplied with every amenity, but at the end of the day it’s still a changing room. 

“You’ve only just recovered, Ichigo-san. It would be prudent –”

“Forget prudence.”

“That’s what landed you here in the first place,” points out Kisuke, but he’s smiling. 

Ichigo looks back as they cross the room towards the exit, glance taking in the closed door to the onsen. Presumably beyond it lie the smashed tiles, ruined by his uncontrolled reiatsu. He remembers, at the flickering edge of his consciousness, the feeling of a second reiatsu. He looks consideringly at Kisuke. 

“Did you feel it? The reiatsu?” he asks.

“I understand only those with reiatsu of their own could sense it. How could I?” 

He’s right. There’s not a flicker of reiatsu to the man, not a hint of it. Control that exquisite would take years to master and a driving necessity – it’s something Ichigo’s never bothered with. 

“I did see the floor cracking,” continues Kisuke. “Very impressive. It prompted me to remove you immediately. Not that I needed much prompting.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t hurt you,” says Ichigo, chagrined. 

“It’s fortunate we have each other to worry about us, as neither of us appears much good at worrying about ourselves,” says Kisuke, and for some reason Ichigo finds it very funny. He actually laughs out loud, for the first time in recent memory. 

“I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you laugh,” says Kisuke, as if reading his mind.

Ichigo smiles. “Good thing the doctor’s coming,” he jokes.

  
***

Nakatani, predictably, scolds him for not asking for help when it was offered. “Really, Shiba-sama,” he says, looking at Ichigo over his glasses, “I would have thought you knew better.” A lifetime of caring for the Shiba children has given him a freer manner than most, at least when it comes to their health.

Ichigo, sitting down while the doctor takes his pulse, makes a face over his shoulder at Kisuke. 

“It will be easy to heal this – I’ll do it now,” he adds, removing his hand from Ichigo’s wrist and settling it above his chest. The green kaido glow flickers into being, and Ichigo feels the tension in his chest releasing. His breathing slowly deepens, and only now does he realise how much he had curtailed it to keep from coughing. It feels good, like rain after a long dry spell allowing new leaves and shoots to unfurl. 

It takes about ten minutes to finish dealing with the smoke damage, and then Nakatani turns to Kisuke. The shop keeper has already undone the wrapping around his burnt hand and is examining the puckered skin carefully. “A second degree burn,” he says, clinically. 

“It was nearing third degree last night,” agrees the physician. “Are you medically trained?”

Kisuke blinks. “Not really,” he says. “It’s just… latent knowledge.” He catches Ichigo’s eye and smiles softly – there’s a hint of pain to it. Ichigo accepts his reluctance to discuss it, at least in front of Nakatani. 

It takes about half an hour to reduce Kisuke’s wounded arm to a superficial burn, no longer needing bandaging but still reddened and angry-looking. 

“I’ll return tomorrow to finish the treatment. That is, if no one has any further accidents in the meantime,” the doctor adds pointedly, looking at Ichigo. 

“We’ll do our best,” replies Ichigo dryly. Nakatani packs up his box and takes his leave, closing the door quietly behind him. Ichigo stretches, revelling in the clean, wholesome feeling of taking a really deep breath. “You never mentioned medical training,” he says when he finishes. 

Kisuke, sitting on a zabuton, looks up. “I suppose not. It’s not training, it’s… a memory. From my former life.”

Ichigo raises his eyebrows. “Now I’m interested.” Almost everyone in the first district was born there, or at least born in one of the top five districts. He knows very little about reincarnation.

Kisuke’s smile is definitely pained now. “It’s not much to tell, I’m afraid. I was in medical school for a year before I died. Had I come to a more prosperous district in Rukongai, I might have considered continuing that education – although as most healing here is performed by kaido, that would have been doomed to failure, I suppose. But I didn’t come to a prosperous district, and knowledge of the difference between the superior and anterior venae cavae was hardly helpful.” His voice is flat and matter-of-fact. He looks, Ichigo thinks, suddenly very removed from the tasteful opulence of the Shiba heir’s quarters. Looks tall and thin and lonesome as a winter tree denuded of all its foliage. 

“You’re here now,” he says, forcefully, looking Kisuke straight in the eye. “You’ll never go back.” _I won’t allow it._

“Never is a long time, Ichigo-san,” Kisuke replies. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

  
***

He establishes Kisuke in the free room across the hall from his own, instructs the servants that it’s Kisuke’s until such time as he tells them otherwise and that they’re to ensure the shop keeper has everything he needs.

“What I really need,” says Kisuke, somewhat fretfully, “is to see my shop.”

So they venture out, Ichigo in his usual wear and Kisuke in a new kimono and hakama that, compared to his regular jinbei and bucket hat, look ridiculously formal. He borrows a pair of geta at the front gate, and they’re off to see the damage.

Ichigo is expecting a wreck, but he’s still surprised by the blackened husk of what once was the Repair Shop. Kisuke is struck dumb by it, stopping when it comes into view and staring for a moment. 

The entire structure has collapsed, not just the back room but the front as well, and has been consumed by the flames. Here and there charred beams stick up from the wreckage; part of the front counter has remained, and a tall block of wood half-buried by burnt roofing that might have been the shelving. The white walls on either side of the building are blackened with smoke and fire damage; the dirt around the perimeter is hardened and flaking away. 

“Well,” says Kisuke softly, staring. “That looks abysmal.”

“It definitely doesn’t look good,” agrees Ichigo. They walk closer to look into the burnt-out wreckage. Even from several feet away Ichigo can smell it – oily smoke and burnt wood. 

Fire is the biggest domestic threat in Soul Society. With so much of their infrastructure built from wood and so many open flames, it’s a rare year that doesn’t see at least one building per district destroyed by fire. It’s the one foe they all live in fear of – even Shinigami training doesn’t prepare one to deal with its cruelty. Staring into the destruction is a vivid reminder of the dangers they live side by side with. 

“You can start again,” says Ichigo, as Kisuke looks silently into the charred remains of the shop. “This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.”

Kisuke turns to look at him thoughtfully. 

“If you can repair anything,” he continues, “building a new shop can’t be that hard.”

“It’s not as easy as that, I’m afraid. But I like your optimism.” And slowly, like frost melting in the sun, Kisuke smiles.

  
***

It doesn’t happen overnight, but slowly their friendship blossoms into something relaxed and natural. Ichigo finds himself wandering across the hall to chat with Kisuke at all hours of the day and night, and is never turned away. He stops by when he gets bored of his paperwork, when he’s energetic and upbeat after his morning hakuda routine, when he’s having a nightcap and wants company. Kisuke is most often working on the forms for closing out his old shop and considering possibilities for a new one, but occasionally he’s reading some of Ichigo’s books or smoking a second-hand kiseru and contemplating the garden. He’s acquired a new jinbei – although no hat – and looks more like himself seated in the doorway leading to the garden with his pipe in hand and a coy smile on his lips.

Seeing him so settled and confident pleases Ichigo, warms something deep in his chest. For all the power and favour that he commands, he’s never had occasion to take someone under his protection. It’s a heady feeling. 

And yet still, Kisuke won’t divulge his secrets. Ichigo tries prying around the edges, casually mentioning the need to supply Kisuke with new equipment and the lack of it in the former shop; looking over Kisuke’s plans when they’re shared and trying to divine their secrets; offering the assistance of the clan’s workmen to build him the infrastructure he needs. 

Kisuke just smiles like a kitsune and tells Ichigo that he can take care of his own needs, and that Ichigo needn’t worry about him. 

It should be infuriating. But Ichigo’s coming to realise he’s far too enthralled by his guest to be needled by him. And from the heavy-lidded glances Kisuke gives him late at night when they’re moon-gazing, he thinks he’s not the only one.

  
***

Fall comes. The summer’s warmth fades, the cicadas dying in droves and littering the ground with their carapaces. The warm breeze turns cool, and they begin closing the storm shutters at night.

Ichigo’s mind, which formerly would have been focused on the quarterly expense reports, turns to long walks in the reddening woods and warming his hands on a warm cup of tea overlooking scenic gardens. Kisuke, he thinks, has never in his life had a chance to appreciate the beauty of Rukongai. This year, he can change that. 

And perhaps, just perhaps, it will be an opportunity to share what’s been growing in his heart these past few months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay and the shorter chapter; I was sick this week and it put me back. I'm thinking maybe another 2-3 chapters and an epilogue...? We'll see! Lots to come!


	8. Crimson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Discussion of previous attempted rape. 
> 
> Note: This was posted less than 24 hours after the previous chapter, so you may want to check to make sure you read that one!

Rukongai has many scenic spots. The waterfalls in Mizusono, the poppy fields in Akaikiba, the distant snowy peaks reflected in the serene lake of Asanagi. But for fall, it has to be Momijimori, the 11th district. It’s the most rural district in the top forty Eastern districts, and yet still close to Seireitei. It’s sparsely populated, being mostly taken up by undeveloped woods. It has managed to keep its pristine status largely thanks to a number of urban myths that surround the woods, which are beautiful in the fall but hauntingly eerie at other times of the year. 

The ghastly stories do help to ensure solitude though, and for that Ichigo’s grateful. He has no intention of pouring his heart out within earshot of others, and in the Shiba compound with its paper-thin walls and hoard of servants and retainers there is no such thing as privacy. 

Kisuke is still working on the plans for a second shop. Aided by the subtle hint of Shiba support, like an iron fist in a velvet glove, he has managed to secure advances on labour and timber and will start building before the fall is out. Men have been working over the past few weeks on clearing out the burnt remains of the previous shop to leave it ready for the new build. 

The evenings are growing colder, and now when they sit out at midnight to watch the moon it’s in padded winter kimono with blankets spread over their laps and a shared bottle of shochu between them. The small maple trees in the garden are already a vivid crimson – it’s the perfect time to visit Momijimori. All it requires is a little boldness.

And Ichigo, withdrawn as he’s become since leaving the Academy, has never lacked for boldness.

“Tomorrow, I want to take you somewhere,” he says, when the conversation reaches a suitable lull.

Kisuke turns, eyebrows arching upwards. “Oh?”

“You’ve spent your whole life in the upper districts working. You should see another side of them.”

“I enjoy working,” protests Kisuke mildly.

“Doesn’t mean that’s all you should do. You’ve got the time now – why not?”

“The idea that one should do more than work is a bit hypocritical coming from you, Ichigo-san,” comments Kisuke, smiling.

“Well, I’m going too. We’ll skip out on work together.”

Kisuke pours himself another glass. “If you’re coming, how could I say no?”

  
***

The quickest way there would, of course, be shunpo. But it’s considered inelegant for a noble to transport himself, and in any case he could hardly go with Kisuke in his arms – although he does allow himself a moment to consider the sensation of whipping through the air with the shop keeper’s warmth against him, Kisuke’s mouth by his cheek. The upshot of it is that he arranges for a rickshaw stocked with thick blankets against the fall chill.

On the way there they talk about the districts they pass through. Ichigo is well-educated in the size, population and products of each; Kisuke seems mostly to know seedy rumours. It’s an education for both of them, and helps calm Ichigo’s nervous heart which is beating like a bird’s in his chest. 

When Ichigo finally reveals they their destination is Momijimori, Kisuke nearly bursts out laughing. “You take me to the most delightful spots, Ichigo-san.”

“It’s one of the most beautiful districts in Rukongai,” he protests. 

Kisuke nods, eyes crinkled with amusement. “I’m sure it is. But it’s widely known as a haunt of ghasts and ghouls.”

“That’s just bedtime stories to keep the local children out. The woods are misty at night and it’s easy to get lost.”

“More and more attractive,” comments Kisuke, tapping his fingers on the cane that lies across his knees. 

“You’ll see,” promises Ichigo, a little harshly. Kisuke laughs.

  
***

They’re let off at the edge of the village beneath the forest with a promise to meet the driver in a few hours. The road that leads up into the woods is more of a trail, a winding dirt path.

Even from here, though, it’s clear that the woods are stunning. The leaves shift like a blanket of flames, all red, orange and gold, rustling softly as the wind blows through. Kisuke can’t keep his eyes off them, and Ichigo smiles to himself at the shop keeper’s obvious captivation. 

“It’s better in the wood,” says Ichigo, and together they walk up the path and into the trees.

It is better. They’re surrounded on all sides by the fiery foliage, the mossy ground littered with red and orange leaves, and tiny patches of blue sky above shining through to off-set the amazing colours. There’s no sound other than the rustling of the wind in the trees. 

“I’ve never imagined there could be such a place in Rukongai,” says Kisuke as they wander deeper, resting a palm on the straight, slim trunk of a maple. 

“There’s a lot of beauty that’s only visible when you don’t have to fight to survive,” agrees Ichigo. 

“Am I so transparent?” 

“How could anyone expect you to appreciate beauty when you’ve been fighting tooth and nail to climb out of the slums of the lower districts? I’ve never been there, so I don’t think I can really understand, but… I wanted to show you something you’ve never been able to see before.”

Kisuke smiles. “Thank you.”

Ichigo stops, back against a tree, dappled sunlight shining down on his face from above. “I know you’re getting closer to getting back on your feet. To getting your shop rebuilt. But I wanted to ask… I wanted to say…” He swallows and looks Kisuke in the eye. “Stay. With me. In the Shiba compound. I don’t want you to leave. You’ll have your work and I know you’ll be busy but – I want you to keep your room there. I want there to be something more between us than friendship, and I want us to be closer than a street apart. You feel it too, don’t you?” He raises his hand and, gently, places it over Kisuke’s heart. 

For a moment they stand in silence, the two of them wrapped in a world of fluttering crimson, all alone.

Kisuke reaches up and takes his hand; squeezes it. “Are you sure that’s what you want? You still don’t know –”

“Your secrets? I know enough. I know you.”

“I would like to stay,” he says, slowly.

“Then do,” presses Ichigo, taking a step forward so there’s only a sliver of daylight between them. “Stay with me.”

“ _Well well_.”

A sudden, sarcastic voice interrupts them. Its tone is heavy and insulting, dripping with disgust. Ichigo turns to see two Shinigami standing at the end of the path with their Zanpaku-tos in their hands. Neither are giving off significant reiatsu – either they’re too low-level, or too high.

Ichigo’s first thought is that there must be a Hollow nearby and he raises his hands protectively, but he doesn’t sense that, either. 

And then he notices the blood dripping from the taller Shinigami’s drawn blade. 

“I wasn’t expecting _more_ fresh meat,” says the taller of the two. Something about him is familiar to Ichigo, scratches at the back of his mind. He’s well-built and tanned, with two light scars over his left eye and long lanky hair. The shorter man beside him is thin and weasily, his face long and narrow and his eyes slightly popping. 

Beside Ichigo, Kisuke steps forward. “What do you want?” he asks, in a hard tone that Ichigo hasn’t heard from him before. 

“Meat doesn’t talk,” sniggers the shorter man, while his companion darts forward.

And, as Ichigo watches, Kisuke draws a sword from his cane. He meets the Zanpaku-to head on, and doesn’t give. The Shinigami activates his Shikai, “Mutter, Tategami!” The blade erupts into a thick series of points almost like a porcupine’s spines; they seek out Kisuke. 

The Shinigami’s identity suddenly pops into Ichigo’s mind – he’s the third seat of the Second Division; one of Yoruichi’s men. Moriyama Rei. Ichigo doesn’t know anything about the man, but he does know that occasionally bored Shinigami bleed into rural Rukongai looking for tests for their blades. For nameless civilians to cut down. Tsujigiri is a known phenomenon, just not one he ever imagined encountering. 

As he watches, Kisuke swipes his sword under the spines and sweeps them away from himself in a surprisingly economical move.

Ichigo’s torn between warning Kisuke of his attacker’s identity and announcing himself – surely they would back off if they knew his identity. A moment later he doesn’t have that option; Moriyama’s companion is charging him. Ichigo snaps into hakuda, spinning sharply to get off a harsh kick that barely misses. 

He flips out of the way of a jab and pulls off a low-level kido aimed straight for his attacker’s back – it’s parried. 

Beside him, Moriyama is growling with fury, swiping harshly at Kisuke who takes a step back under the onslaught. Ichigo ducks a blow and dodges between the two of them to smash the palm of his hand at Moriyama’s windpipe. Moriyama cuts the spines of his sword downward at Ichigo at a speed he can’t block – not with his bare hands.

“Awaken, Benihime.”

Ichigo feels Kisuke’s reiatsu wash over him like a crimson wave. It’s extreme and powerful, but controlled so well that it’s not crushing. It’s like the sensation of the ocean washing up against his feet – delicate at this moment but with the promise of destruction. Ichigo looks up at the blade blocking the spines from impaling him, and sees a Zanpaku-to. 

Benihime.

He blinks, and then Kisuke is shoving him backwards and ripping his blade up at an incredible speed. It shatters the spines of Moriyama’s Zanpaku-to and slides neatly into his throat. 

And now the air is filled with a different shade of crimson. 

Moriyama’s companion gives a shriek and backs off – a lower-level Shinigami, doubtless, astounded at his bully-friend’s defeat. A moment later he’s gone, fleeing in a flutter of shunpo. 

Kisuke stares down at the body before him, and then looks up at Ichigo. There’s blood splattered on the front of his kimono, and on his face. He lowers his sword, blood dripping onto the ground and pooling there. His eyes are dark, his mouth drawn in a long, sad line. 

“Now you know my secret, Ichigo-san: I’m a murderer.”

  
***

For a moment they stand there over Moriyama’s corpse, just them and the rustling of a thousand trees. And then Ichigo says, roughly, “Explain. Now.”

There’s no more time for games, no more coy conversations and subtle verbal parries. Kisuke is what he pretended not to be – what there is _no record_ of him being – and he’s cut down a seated Shinigami. Albeit a murderous one. And Ichigo wants to take his side, truly does, but whatever secret he had imagined for Kisuke it doesn’t border on one tenth of what’s just been revealed. 

Kisuke’s mouth quirks humorlessly; he runs his hand down his blade an inch from its surface and seals it into its shikomizue form. He gives it a short, sharp swing, removing the blood. “I was younger than your sisters when I died, a spoilt son of a spoilt family. My life had been preordained for me: the best schools, medical school, surgical training. However, I only completed only my first year of university before I was killed in a road accident – a promising life cut short. So you may say, I understand something of your life.” His eyes snap up briefly to Ichigo’s, and then away. “I awoke in Rukongai, in Kemono no Koushi.”

Ichigo sucks in his breath; it’s the 79th District, renowned for its savagery and brutality. 

“There was no rule of law, no protections to rely on. Everyone was in a gang, and your strength and cunning and ruthlessness were your worth. Needless to say, I was worth very little. And I had a further failing: I was good looking. I discovered it when, a month after arriving, a Shinigami came to the District. Here they’re known as divine protectors; there they’re known as bullies and murderers. They commit tsujigiri like this one attempted,” he glances down at Moriyama, “on those they see as worthless. So when I was cornered by one in a back alley, I assumed he had come for my life. Then he started stripping off my clothes.”

Kisuke pauses, taking a slow, deep breath. He’s staring into the distance now, mind very clearly back in the moment. Ichigo feels his stomach churning, a frigid coldness spreading through his veins like ice water. He grits his teeth and forces himself to stay calm, to listen. “I don’t know exactly what happened. He didn’t manage what he came for; beyond that all I know is that when I told you my medical training was useless, I lied. I knew exactly where his carotid arteries were – exactly where to press to kill him. And I did. I took his sword for protection and ran. I don’t know his name, and probably never will.”

“I didn’t know what reiatsu was at the time. I didn’t know anything about Zanpaku-tos either, or Shinigami. What I did know was that over time I began to hunger. And I began to hear a voice calling to me. It was months before I heard her clearly: Benihime. Over the years she taught me how to mask my reiatsu to decrease my hunger to a manageable amount, and how best to use her. The nameless Shinigami was the first man I killed, but he wasn’t the last. We became partners, with nothing but each other to our names, and still no chance of a future.” He bends down and picks up the sheath for the shikomizue and sheaths the sword, hand lingering over it. 

“You’ve been so curious as to how I manage my miracles without materials or equipment. Can you guess now?” he asks, looking up. 

“I think I’m starting to see. But…”

“It took me more than a decade to learn what she was trying to teach me; that I had to master the sword to bring out its full potential. When I did, she gave me a gift I could never have imagined. The ability to take anything to pieces – and put it back together. Seamlessly. Perfectly.”

“You were using bankai to repair trinkets,” says Ichigo, flatly. “Every night. Just across the street from me.” wars with: _unbelievable!_

“It wasn’t easy. Masking my hunger, masking eating. Masking my reiatsu. But by then I was adept at it. I had been doing it for several years, working my way out of the slums.”

“But _bankai!_ ” says Ichigo. “Why not go to Seireitei? You could be a captain by now!”

“And when they asked where I got my Zanpaku-to?” asks Kisuke, quietly but sharply. 

Ichigo pauses.

“Admit that I had killed a Shinigami? Why would they believe my side of the story? Would they not take Benihime from me – take perhaps even my life?”

“Zaraki Kenpachi killed a former captain and was promoted for it,” Ichigo says, slowly.

“And what is the precedent for a civilian who kills an unranked Shinigami? Do you believe they would have welcomed me? And why in any case should I want to join ranks with my would-be rapist?” he asks, more harshly. 

“They’re not all like that,” protests Ichigo.

“No. Just the ones I’ve met,” replies Kisuke, looking down at the corpse by his feet.

“Kisuke…”

Kisuke’s eyes are hard and watchful, but he shows no sign of moving. “What will you do now, Ichigo-san? Clearly your former request can no longer stand. What will you say when this one’s companion reports his death? They will blame me – and they will be right.”

He says it with such resignation that it makes Ichigo’s heart ache. “You weren’t wrong to kill that bastard all those years ago, and you weren’t wrong to protect me now. I won’t let anyone punish you for it. You leave. I’ll go home and get Zangetsu and come back. He attacked us both – there’s nothing wrong with taking credit for his fate. They can’t punish a noble son for a tsujigiri’s death.”

Kisuke blinks.

“Well? Go back to the village and tell the rickshaw driver to take you home. Stay there until I come back. You’ll be safe there.”

“I’m not sure I’ve done anything to deserve such friendship, Ichigo-san. But our blades look nothing alike – no one would believe this man was killed by your sword. And I can’t let you take the blame for my actions, regardless of the consequences.”

“You’re too damn stubborn, you know that?” huffs Ichigo. He thinks for a minute, tapping his foot impatiently. “Look, fine. There’s another way. I didn’t have time to tell you, but I recognized him; he’s a member of the 2nd. Yoruichi – my friend – is their captain. I can go to her. She can help. She will help,” he says. “I’ll go and send a jigokuchou for her now. You just stay here until I come back. Okay?”

Kisuke nods slowly. “If that’s what you think is best.”

“It’ll be okay, Kisuke. I promise. I’ll make it okay.”

Kisuke sighs. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, Ichigo-san, but I used to believe I had that power too, in my former life. And…” _look where I ended up_ goes unspoken.

“Well I _do_ have the power. And I’ll prove it to you. Just wait here.” He takes off in a step of shunpo, world blurring. 

He will make this right. He _will._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Mizusono_ – Water Garden  
>  _Akaikiba_ – Red Fang  
>  _Asanagi_ – Morning Calm Over Sea  
>  _Momijimori_ \- Fall Leaves Forest  
>  _Kemono no Koushi_ – Hindquarters of the Beast  
>  _Tategami_ – Mane


	9. A Rare Prize

He feels tied up in his own anger, like a crab wound up in string at the market. Unable to break free, unable to even struggle against it. He is furious: at Moriyama Rei and his companion, at the Shinigami who attacked Kisuke so long ago, at the system that forced a young innocent man to kill to defend himself. 

He is even angry with Yoruichi for not seeing the murderous intent in her midst. And, of course, at himself. For failing to ever do anything to help the young men and women like Kisuke.

He reaches Momijimori’s district office still seething, snapping out of shunpo just in front of the wood and brass compound door. 

All district offices, at least in the upper districts, have a similarly officious look to them. Many feature statues in stone or bronze of local civic leaders; each proudly displays its own emblem – in Momijimori’s case, three momiji leaves splayed outwards. The building has its own compound, one of the few in this rural district. Ichigo enters past a standing flag declaring it _Momiji Viewing Season!_ and pulls open the heavy door.

Inside is a wide open space with tables along the walls provided for paperwork completion. At the back of the room is a sedate-looking woman at a desk; she’s middle-aged and is clearly a fixture of the administration. Behind her is a partition presumably disguising the inner workings of the office building.

“May I help you?” she asks, looking up. She’s wearing a gold pince-nez on a bright blue ribbon that magnifies her eyes oddly. Ichigo strides over, movements short and curt. 

“I need to send a jigokuchou. Now.” He produces his stamped letter of authority as magistrate of District 1; her eyes widen.

“Of course, Shiba-sama.” She stands, her wooden chair clattering on the ground, and hurries around the partition. She returns a moment later with the black moth fluttering in its cage. She puts it down on her desk and produces the requisition form that will allow Ichigo to communicate through it; he stamps it with his seal and feels the soft brush of its wings against his mind.

_Shihouin Compound: Shihouin Yoruichi_ , he tells it, opening the cage. It swoops out of from behind the bars and dances delicately out the front door. He follows it, the office assistant bowing him out.

Jigokuchou experience time and space differently than Shinigami; it’s only moments before its landing on Yoruichi’s finger, the connection to her established. He feels the bright, razor-sharp sensation of his mind close to his, transmitted through the jigokuchou. 

_Yoruichi-san. I need help – it’s urgent. I’m in Momijimori at the district office. Can you come?_

He senses a brief flash of concern. _On my way_ , replies Yoruichi. 

Ichigo is too wound-up to enjoy the calm of the compound, to do anything more than count down the seconds as he waits. Fortunately, it’s only a minute before Yoruichi appears, stepping gracefully out of shunpo without a hair out of place. Her usual smile has been replaced by a look of concern. It heightens as she notices the splashes of blood concealed imperfectly against the dark brown of his kimono – a detail the office assistant hadn’t picked up on. 

“What happened?”

“A tsujigiri. Your third seat,” he says, eyes hard. “Moriyama Rei. He and another attacked my friend and me. The other escaped. Moriyama was cut down.”

“You killed him?” she asks. Her voice is calm and collected, her face stony. This is the commander of the onmitsukido and the 2nd Division, and she is nothing if not formidable. But Ichigo is still alight with righteous fury, and isn’t the least affected. 

“Not me. You’d better come.”

She nods and follows him as he steps into shunpo, the red leaves flying past in a crimson tunnel. 

He steps out beside Moriyama’s body, Yoruichi appearing beside him. Moriyama’s blood has pooled beneath his throat in a dark puddle, his lifeless Zanpaku-to – now once again an asauchi – lies beside him. 

Kisuke is nowhere to be seen. Ichigo feels a brief thrill of concern – did he run? Was he unable to trust Ichigo to fix this?

Yoruichi looks down at the body. She bends down at turns it over, revealing the gaping wound in its neck. “Who did this?” she asks.

“I did.” Kisuke is waiting in the trees, half-hidden behind a thick trunk. He steps out, Benihime gripped tight. Ichigo’s heart calms from its frantic tattoo. “I thought it better to wait unseen, in case his companion returned,” he says. He keeps his eyes on Yoruichi as he steps over the thick carpet of fallen leaves to return to the path. They crunch softly beneath his geta. 

“And you are?” she asks, rising.

“Urahara Kisuke.”

Her eyes flash to Ichigo. “I see.” She looks back to him, and the cane he carries. “No shikomizue could have cut down a Shinigami. Why do you carry a Zanpaku-to, Urahara Kisuke?” 

“It’s his by right,” interrupts Ichigo, crossing his arms. 

“What right is that?” she asks.

“Combat. He killed its previous owner.”

Yoruichi’s eyebrows rise. “So. You have killed two Shinigami,” she says. “One a seated officer. And the other?”

Kisuke’s eyes are cold. “I don’t know his name, or his rank. He came to my district to rape and murder – I stopped him.”

“I can see our intelligence has been lacking,” she says, dryly. “Why did you kill my officer?”

“He was trying to kill me. And Ichigo-san. I acted in self-defence.”

“He did,” agrees Ichigo staunchly. “And if I’d had Zangetsu, I would have done the same. His blade was wet with blood when he found us – he had already killed someone else. If you look around I’m sure you’ll find the body.”

Yoruichi glances down at the body again. “You have a knack for finding trouble, Ichi-bo,” she says eventually. She shifts to stand akimbo, eyes finding his. “But you know how to pick your friends. The nature of my command is a violent one, but there is no excuse for Shinigami harming civilians. I will see that this mess is cleaned up quietly – for you. But you,” she adds, looking now to Urahara Kisuke. “Your future is more difficult to secure. Zanpaku-to belong to Shinigami, not civilians. There are exceptions made for those who withdraw or retire from combat, but I don’t see how I can allow you to keep the blade. Not without proper training and an allegiance to Seireitei and the Soul King.”

Kisuke’s shoulders stiffen, his jaw tightening. 

“Tell her,” says Ichigo. “Tell her how you repair things.”

“I use bankai,” he says, quietly. 

Yoruichi’s eyes flicker, widening minutely. “Bankai?” she asks, half-interested, half-lazily.

“Yes.”

“Can you prove it?”

“If need be, yes.”

She taps her fingers on her arm. “That puts a slightly different complexion on things. A greenhorn running around with a sword he doesn’t understand is one thing; an expert is another. And someone self-taught must be a genius,” she adds, looking him up and down closely. Kisuke doesn’t blink. “Let’s see it then,” she says, and smiles toothily.

He glances at Ichigo, who nods. He takes his sword in one hand and passes the other down its length, unsealing it. Benihime, Ichigo can better appreciate now, is a crook-hafted sword with a straight blade and a sharply-angled point. Kisuke handles it like he was born with it in his hand. 

“Kannonbiraki Benihime Aratame.” 

Ichigo is expecting a transformation of the sword, or of Kisuke, and in both cases is disappointed. Kisuke and Benihime remain as they are, untouched by the power of bankai. But above him, towering over like a goddess, an immense female figure fades into being bent protectively over Kisuke. Her hair is dark and two long locks drape down on either side of her pale face while the rest is pulled backward in a complicated knot; her dress is plain and white and gapes open at the front to reveal milky-white breasts. Her arms are the straight, stiff limbs of a karakuri ningyou.

Yoruichi whistles appreciatively. 

“I can take anything to pieces, or put it back together again, enhancing it if I care to. That’s Benihime’s power,” says Kisuke. “It’s not much help in combat, but it saved my life. I’m where I am today thanks to it.” 

“Can you fix him?” she asks, pointing one long-nailed finger at Moriyama.

“I can’t bring him back to life, if that’s what you mean.”

Yoruichi laughs a deep, roiling laugh. “If you could do that, you would be a rare prize indeed,” she says. “No. Can you repair the damage done to him?”

With a slow, mechanical movement, the giant goddess above reaches out a stiff hand. She passes it over Moriyama’s throat; stitches appear in the skin there, slowly pulling together as she manipulates them like a puppet master. The bloody wound shuts itself and the skin seals as though it had never been rent. There’s no scar, no bruise, no sign of trauma at all.

“I can see,” says Yoruichi slowly, walking around him like a cat investigating a new toy, “that you’re an unusual man. And because of that, I’m minded to make an unusual offer.”

Kisuke seals Benihime away; the giant goddess disappears like mist under the midday sun. He leans on the cane – if he’s faking his casualness, it’s well done. “Oh yes?”

“Come with me. Join the 2nd Division as my third seat. I could use a genius – even if he is a novice.”

Ichigo feels her words like a kick to the gut. Hears the words _join me_ as _leave_.

Kisuke’s eyes widen. “You want me to become a Shinigami?” For the first time, a ripple of reiatsu slips through his control, a crimson wave.

“A Shinigami is defined by the possession of reiatsu. You are by definition a Shinigami already.”

“The only Shinigami I know are thugs and murderers. Why ever would I join you?”

She steps forward, still smiling sharply. “Because, Urahara Kisuke, you have very few choices. I can make this go away – I will do that as a favour to Ichi-bo and as repentance for having failed to better discipline my subordinates. But as a captain and as the head of the onmitsukido, I _cannot_ let a man with your talents exist with no training in our ways and laws. The obvious thing to do would be to throw you in the Academy and let you do as you would after graduation, but that’s no place for a man who has achieved bankai. So I offer you a place in my squad.”

“ _His_ place,” says Kisuke, looking down at Moriyama. 

“I do not deny that the power we hold has led some of us to acts of wanton violence and cruelty. But without Shinigami there would be no Soul Society; without us there would be no balance in the world or safety for humans or innocent souls. We are far greater than the sum of those who abused you.”

Kisuke looks to Ichigo, and back. “You’re asking me to leave the 1st District. To leave Ichigo-san, and even to steal his dream,” he says. “When all he wants is for me to stay.”

Ichigo feels his stomach drop, his heart contract sharply and slowly release. But this is beyond what he wants now. 

“I can bend the rules for you,” she says, steadily. “I can’t break them. You cannot remain autonomous with a Zanpaku-to and no allegiance to a Shinigami’s masters.”

“Then let me learn the lessons you insist I do, and return to my old life. That’s fair, surely?”

Yoruichi purses her lips. “I will not provide you with a fixed term, if that’s what you’re requesting. But it may be possible for you to leave. In time.”

Kisuke narrows his eyes. Despite the sealed sword in his hand and the dead man at his feet, Yoruichi is unaffected.

“You should go,” says Ichigo, words feeling ripped from within him. “If it’s the only way, if it’s what Yoruichi-san can do for you – for us – then you should go.”

“Seireitei is your dream, not mine,” says Kisuke gently. 

“Then we’ll both suffer – for a time. But Yoruichi-san’s right; it won’t be forever. Not if you don’t want it to be.”

Kisuke looks back to Yoruichi. “Will I be permitted to visit? Regularly?” he asks.

Yoruichi nods. “That can be arranged.”

Kisuke sighs. “Then I suppose I will go,” he says, reluctantly, and then looking to Ichigo. “But I will be back. I promise.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue to go now!


	10. Epilogue: Return

It’s awkward, the first time Kisuke comes back. He’s been gone nearly three months, and while he’s written a few times he’s conveyed very little of his circumstances. Ichigo’s replies have felt boring and stale – with Kisuke’s influence gone from his life, he’s fallen back into his rut. And then, suddenly, his probationary period finished and he was allowed leave from Seireitei. And now he’s here.

Kisuke’s dressed in shihakushou, his geta replaced by tabi and waraji. He looks washed out in black, what little colour there was to his hair and skin drained by the dark cotton. He wears Benihime at his waist, no longer sealed as a cane but now unmistakably a zanpaku-to. 

Ichigo sees him first from a distance, strolling through the East Gate of Seireitei looking like he’s been gone for years, like he’s been fully enveloped by this new life of his. Swallowed whole, like a salmon by a whale.

Ichigo feels a flash of despair – a sudden fear that what they had was too little, too short-lived, to withstand the pressure of Kisuke’s new life. That he never should have expected otherwise, never should have held out hope. 

But then the former shop keeper spots him and lights up with his familiar smile, raising a hand to wave in his carefree manner. “Ichigo-saaaan!” he calls, cupping his hand around his mouth like a street vendor. He’s holding a cloth-wrapped parcel in his free hand; his raises it. “I brought omiyage!”

Ichigo smiles despite himself. “You’re not on a sightseeing trip,” he says, as Kisuke arrives at his side. 

“Yoruichi-san told me you were fond of the bean cakes from Juugoya. They’re better even than the food here in Tensei. And it didn’t seem fair to come back without a gift.” 

“For what?” asks Ichigo.

“For your patience. You didn’t have to wait for me.”

“You didn’t have to come back.”

Kisuke’s smile softens. “Then I suppose we both have something to be glad for. Shall we go?”

  
***

They go to a tea house where they’re given a private room overlooking a still koi pond. Kisuke is both frank and thoughtful, updating Ichigo on the happenings in Seireitei without dwelling on it – on the world he’s no longer a part of.

“Do you like it?” asks Ichigo, when he’s finished.

Kisuke swirls his tea, watching the leaves at the bottom spin in the tiny whirlpool. “More than I thought I would, I suppose. That’s not saying much. I’m a curiosity there – I don’t fit in. But I’m used to that.”

“You’ll fit in in time.”

Kisuke looks up, grey eyes shadowed. “I don’t know that I want that. I was happy here.”

“That doesn’t mean this is the only place you can be happy,” points out Ichigo. 

“I don’t want to win my happiness at your expense. At _our_ expense.” 

Ichigo feels heat rising into his face, feels his heart slip out of its holding pattern and into a quick tempo. “Do you still want to try it? Us?”

Kisuke places one hand on Ichigo’s, fingers smooth. “Whole-heartedly.”

Ichigo ducks his head, face suddenly wreathed in smiles he can’t suppress. Words fail him, his mind too full of gratitude and relief. He squeezes Kisuke’s hand instead. 

“It’s nice to see you smile,” says Kisuke.

  
***

His first visit is all too short, but there are more as the shortest days of the year pass. They visit gardens and scenic spots together, and spend evenings together talking and gossiping and playing go and shogi. Kisuke brings Osechi to eat for New Year’s and he and Ichigo get roaringly drunk, to Yuzu’s dismay. They end up in bed together – just asleep, dozy with alcohol and hungry for the warmth of another body. The next night when they end up in bed together there’s no alcohol involved – but plenty of hunger.

After that Ichigo finds himself counting down the days between Kisuke’s visits, anticipating them for days in advance. He has trouble living in the moment while they’re together, feeling the weight on his shoulders of the emptiness that will settle down on him again like a shroud as soon as the former shop keeper leaves. And tactful as Kisuke is about discussing his life as a Shinigami, Ichigo is finding himself pining for it as keenly as he had in the months after he left the Academy. 

If Kisuke notices, he says nothing about it. He tells Ichigo he can’t come more often than monthly, but he writes frequently – short, scrawled notes often with a sly humour to them. 

It’s while he’s reading one of these notes that Ichigo has the sudden, wrenching realisation that he’s in love. And that he has no idea how long he can maintain this relationship with all the obstacles they face.

  
***

“You look tired,” Kisuke tells him when they next meet, early in April with the cherry blossoms blooming in thick fluffy clouds of pale pink. They’re lying together on a blanket stretched beneath one of the Shiba compound’s most fabulous trees, nearly 400 years old and still blossoming.

“It’s nothing,” says Ichigo, too bored of his own boredom to want to discuss it.

Kisuke shakes his head slowly. He looks cold and serious, hard as steel. “You’re burning out. The work you do, the life you lead… it’s slowly crushing you. It’s more apparent every time I see you.”

Ichigo sighs. “It will be better when you come back.”

“Will it? Am I enough to make you happy?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. I don’t see any other option.” He stares up at the petals above, soft and delicate against the blue sky. “I don’t want to be a burden to you, you know. I don’t. But… I don’t think I could lose you either.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” replies Kisuke, in an almost scolding tone. “But, exceptional though I am, even I may not be able to bring back the spark you’ve lost.”

“I’m not a fire that’s gone out,” says Ichigo, irritably.

Kisuke’s lips turn downwards. “I think it’s very much like that. And I’m afraid that Seireitei might be the only thing that could light it again.”

  
***

They don’t talk about it again. About the fact that Ichigo is living for Kisuke’s letters and visits, about the fact that the blandness of his life is killing him. About the fact that there is not a damn thing he can do about it.

Spring passes into summer, and the festival season begins. Shinigami are granted more time off this time of year, and Kisuke comes back more frequently to change into a yukata and geta and attend festivals with Ichigo. They eat takoyaki and barbequed corn and ice cream, and come back home late to roll into bed together and wile away the time in each other’s arms.

  
***

Kisuke comes back for the lantern festival at the end of summer. It’s been just over a year since he moved in next door, since Ichigo found the best thing in his life.

They dress together and walk out into the soft lantern light, cicadas still buzzing in the trees. Children are running excitedly through the crowd with pinwheels, parents calling after them to little effect. Ichigo sees neighbours and distant relatives as well as servants and retainers mixed in among the crowd. 

They walk slowly through the stands trying food, listening to the distant beat of the drums. As always, the crowd moves inexorably towards the bonfire. 

Karin came home for the festival, and Ichigo can see her with Yuzu and his father up ahead at a shooting arcade stand. They move on before he and Kisuke reach them. 

“This is the first time we met outside my shop,” says Kisuke, as they reach the bonfire. His hand is at Ichigo’s elbow, the press of his body close in the sultry night. He’s looking at the bench they met on; Ichigo still remembers it vividly.

“I came out that night to find you,” Ichigo tells him. 

Kisuke smiles “I’m flattered.”

They move into the dance together. After a year without practice their motions are stiff and hesitant at first, but soon they’re flowing with the rest of the crowd, circling the fire slowly to the sound of drum beats.

They dance for some ten minutes before Kisuke pulls him away, out of the bonfire’s circle of heat and into a back alley. The lanterns overhead glow, casting a red light on the small road. There’s no one else here, the two of them alone in a private world.

“I wanted to talk to you. Tonight. Here,” says Kisuke. 

Ichigo’s eyebrows arch upwards. “About what?”

“I’ve figured it out. How to get you into Seireitei.”

He stops dead. “I’ve told you, there isn’t any way.”

“Not for Shiba Ichigo. No.” Kisuke takes a breath. “But Urahara Ichigo could.”

For a moment, Ichigo forgets how to breathe. His throat closes up; his chest stiffens. He stands there unmoving, utterly stunned.

“I know it’s no great clan – I have no influence or power except what I make, and a small enough salary. After the life you’ve led it’s a pathetic offering. But…”

“Kisuke,” breaks in Ichigo, breathlessly. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

Kisuke blinks. “Fundamentally, yes.”

“And take your name, and move to Seireitei?”

“You still have two sisters to carry on your line, and if you were no longer a Shiba you would be no embarrassment to Shiba Kaien. So yes. Join my clan. Join _me_.”

“But then _you_ would be stuck in Seireitei,” points out Ichigo, trying desperately to hear over the sound of his heart thundering in his head.

“In Seireitei, yes. But not as a Shinigami. I intend to step down when Yoruichi-san permits me, and go back to my trade. Even Shinigami need items repaired.” He pauses, cocking his head to the side. “What do you think?” he asks, with slight hesitancy. 

“I think that you,” says Ichigo, stepping forward and catching his face softly in his hands, “are brilliant.”

And he kisses him.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading and for all the very encouraging comments! Hope you enjoyed.


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